Music

Saturday in the Lost Apartment and all is well, or so it seems. Yesterday wasn’t the worst day, just kind of a quiet one where I felt off most of the day and couldn’t quite puzzle it out until later in the afternoon: I wasn’t in my normal routine. I had to go to the office for a meeting yesterday morning, ran an errand on the way home, but they had turned off the water to install a new shower in the carriage house, so I couldn’t do laundry or dishes or anything until it was turned back on. I definitely was out of sorts throughout the day. This morning I have to get get my shots (flu and COVID), and run another couple of errands while I am uptown. We didn’t have any gully-washer thunderstorms, either–when we did get rain, it seemed to be that kind that forms when the humidity gets to 100% and it solidifies as water/rain. I also have a lot of my plate this weekend. As I was lying in bed this morning waiting for Sparky’s “feed me” chirps, I started thinking about all the things I do need to get done and was like, when did I get so busy again? I kind of don’t like it! But naught to do but make a list and check things off as they do get done. We’re also supposed to get a lot of rain between now and Monday night, but it’s sunny right now–the forecast claims a thunderstorm will be here within the next hour, but that’s New Orleans for you; the sun can be shining and not a cloud in the sky one minute, and then twenty minutes later it’s pitch black outside and the streets are flooding.

It’s always an adventure.

We watched more AHS: 13 last night, which isn’t as off-the-rails as I had originally thought, but still not very tightly written, despite the brevity of the episodes. I also answered a question I’d been asking myself for a long time: why do I keep watching Ryan Murphy shows when I know they will inevitably be disappointing? As I watched Jessica Lange last night, I realized I watch for the cast. Murphy always has this interesting mix of really talented performers and not as talented but beautiful boys…and then you have someone like Evan Peters, insanely talented and incredibly beautiful. Murphy is also strong into casting nepo babies, but I remain committed to never watching anything with a Kardashian in it.

There are a lot of good football games on today, but LSU is playing McNeese State tonight in Baton Rouge. We’ll watch, even though better games are on because, well, LSU. I’ll miss the start of Alabama-Mississippi State–both are undefeated–but Alabama hasn’t lost to them since 2007 and maybe has lost to them maybe less than ten times historically? I remember it was Mississippi State that broke Alabama’s winning streak in 1980–they hadn’t lost since the early part of the 1978 season–so it is possible, but I’ll believe MSU can win when I see it happen. I almost always default Alabama to win, because they generally do. I do think this is a make-or-break year for their coach; if Alabama misses the play-offs for the third year in a row, he might be done for. Alabama hasn’t won the natty since 2020–which is a long time now for those spoiled fans, who got used to playing for it almost every year under Nick Saban.

The bar there is set even higher than the one in Baton Rouge.

I did spend some more time with The Dead Zone yesterday, which is a marvelously constructed novel, and reading again after so many years I am appreciating the book so much more than all the previous times I read it. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed every page on every read; but this time, I am marveling at the craftmanship and the incredible structuring of it. It really is a masterwork (I had always liked The Shining but never loved it. When I revisited that one again sometime in the last years, I appreciated it more (I don’t really like toddlers-in-danger stories; hence why I never connected with either Pet Sematary or Cujo) than I ever had before. If The Stand wasn’t so damned long, I would love to revisit it as well. That, for the record, has always been my favorite King novel.

I must admit, when I learned Vanity Fair was doing a big profile on Erica Kirk I literally rolled my eyes and thought, not this Nazi bitch again and thought, this is why I didn’t renew my subscription (it wasn’t; I’d just forgotten and hadn’t gotten around to it yet) and didn’t. Silly me, Vanity Fair–I forgot you have game, and what you did to the people around Trump in that “emperor has no clothes” piece and photoshoot you did with them, showing that they are actually more awful and stupid than previously believed. I should have known you’d lure the fame-hungry grifter in with the promise of a profile and photoshoot, setting her up to look as bad as humanly possible. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. I will be renewing today. You deserve my money for how you cover the narcissistic grifters to whom any attention is better than no attention. Thank you for your service to the Republic.

I also love that Governor Hochul has appointed bad-ass Leticia James to oversee the new investigation into the Cornell gang-rape situation. If the victim is going to actually get any justice, Leticia James will get it for her. I feel a lot better about this case now, and I also think it’s time to do away with campus police. They can be security, but the campus needs to be under the local police jurisdiction at the very least, if not the state’s. The campus police don’t work for the good of the students they work to protect the university. So parents, don’t think campus police are there to protect your children. They are not, just like the police only protect property, not people (and yes, those priorities are askew).

And on that note, I am going to post this and then do some chores around here before it’s time to head uptown for my shots. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I will see you again tomorrow morning.

Beautiful young Louis Jourdan

Impressive Instant

Friday morning and in a bit I am off to the office for a meeting before I run errands on my way home. It has been a pretty decent week, in all honesty. I didn’t sleep as well as I would have preferred, but that happens, and I think I was drinking coffee after twelve noon the last couple of days, which could be the cause. Caffeine and I walk a very thin line together; too much makes me sick, and if I drink any after noon I won’t sleep as well. So it goes in the life of a senior citizen. But I did sleep through the night, and feel pretty rested and good this morning (I think my body doesn’t know I am going to the office in a moment, or maybe the extra hour this morning made a huge difference).

It did rain a bit yesterday (and more so while I slept, given how wet everything outside appears to be), and now that I work in a testing room with a window (it faces Elysian Fields1) the temptation to just sit there and watch the rain is very powerful. I am a sucker for rain, always have been, which is yet another reason I love living in New Orleans. I lived in California for eight years and I can’t even remember it raining there, which was awful. The rains of Houston, where I moved next, were awesome though. Unfortunately, that meant the humidity returned after it stopped and the sun came back out. Wednesday it was in the 80s most of the day, but when I left the office it was pleasant out–meaning no humidity–and it wasn’t hot inside the car, either. I managed to get home and into the house without breaking a sweat, and it’s been months since that last happened.

Well, the always problematic Joyce Carol Oates showed her entire flat, unwashed ass by claiming the only genre where AI would be useful would be romance–which she claimed was formulaic and thus of no value, apparently–which is such a disgusting thing for any woman to say, especially one as famous and respected and praised as Joyce Carol Oates. Way to shit on an entire genre, which is predominantly for women and dominated by women. Surely, Ms. Oates doesn’t mean to imply that she hasn’t written anything formulaic, does she? Because I cannot believe every single thing that has come out of her typewriter has been so completely original and never done or tried before and had has advanced modern literature by breaking new and important literary territory? Or is she just another one of those women who dislike other women? I know some of her buddies are misogynist pigs, and despite all evidence that her buddies are garbage, she proudly stands by them. Probably thinks she’s also a feminist while playing pick-me to be one of the guys. I don’t write romance, but I know a snobby bitch when I see one. I don’t need to boycott her because seeing her clearly as a tool of the patriarchy, I stopped reading her.

And I don’t kiss anyone’s ass, no matter how “powerful” they appear to be. It’s easy to shit on a genre when you’ve never written in it–and frankly, because a HEA is de rigeur, romance writers also excel at character, dialogue and place; no one’s going to read a romance that doesn’t affect their emotions because then it wouldn’t be a romance. I would like to challenge every elitist writer who thinks romance is a joke genre to write one. Let’s see exactly how easy it is, shall we? I remember a few years ago when that South American literary writer wrote a thriller “as a joke” but then published it; shitting all over our genre because, you know, she’s so above it. Turned out mystery fans weren’t going to support a snotty, arrogant elitist bitch anymore than a romance fan would.

I may not write romance, and I don’t read a lot of it. But I have edited a lot of romance novels, I appreciate the skills and talents of romance authors, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for them. I may write one someday, not to see if I can make “easy money” (there’s no such thing in this business), but to see if I can actually do it well. I like challenging myself when I write, and I think writing a romance would be a great challenge for me. Someday. I need to finish the current book and write another Scotty before I start the horror novel I’m itching to start writing.

You come for the romance genre through me, bitch.

I didn’t do much around here last night when I got home because I was tired. I came straight home and crashed out immediately into my chair with Sparky in my lap, and I just kind of zoned out with the news–both national and football. Today is my last full day in the office for the week–we have an in-person meeting tomorrow morning–but the good news is the house isn’t in bad shape, and so won’t take me long this weekend to set to rights. I am dragging a bit this morning, which is to be expected on a Thursday morning, right? I slept pretty well the last two nights and have no trouble getting up in the mornings, but I remain a bit tired throughout the day, and maybe not as alert as I would like by the time I get home every night? Thursday nights usually are nights when I don’t do much of anything; but I do have to get up early tomorrow for the meeting. I need to get back to work on writing fiction–the book and some other short stories, but it’s the newsletter essays I’ve been enjoying writing the most lately, which is odd–but I also think writing those is helping me improve on my skills.

Yesterday was also October 1st and the official start of Halloween Horror Month, when most of my reading and streaming will (and should be) horror. I definitely want to watch Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street again, and maybe pick up on some new ones. I really wish Friday the 13th-the Series was available to stream somewhere, because I’d love to watch it all again; I don’t think I ever saw the entire show. But the antique store of cursed objects–and having to track the objects down before they start killing people–was a most excellent concept, and while the show was done on the cheap–it was syndicated back before money was put into syndicated shows–the few episodes I’ve been able to track down on Youtube are a bit hokey, but there’s still a lot of fun to watch. I love dedicating the entire month to horror; even my juvenile rereads this month will have to do with hauntings, methinks. I think AHS:13 airs its entire season by the end of October, which is nice. It’s also weird to think next Friday I’ll be heading up to Alabama for Mom and Dad’s birthdays, and then up to Kentucky for the rest of that following week. This month is going to fly by, isn’t it? And then it’s November and then Christmas and then Mardi Gras and it’s March before I know it.

And ugh, I agreed to moderate a panel at the Louisiana Book Festival, so I have to do two things up there this year. Given the cost of gas, more bang for my buck is probably a good thing. I’ll probably end up going up on Friday and spending the night; there’s an opening party that night I usually skip, but I’d rather do that then get up early Saturday and drive up there…which means booking a room. Add that to my lengthy to-do list.

The local New Orleans gay community is up in arms over something I cannot really speak to without making the following disclaimer: I do not speak for my day job, I am not authorized to speak on behalf of my day job, and I am speaking here solely as myself–Greg Herren, the local gay author who has lived here for over thirty years, moving here before there was life-saving treatment for HIV. If you want to see what’s going on, feel free to go on Facebook and look at either the Queer New Orleans page or certain Quarter bars. I can’t speak on the situation and again do not speak for the agency where I work, but I would like to thank the local gay community for your support and the pushback against the businesses attacking us. I forget sometimes how important we are to the community here, how much good we’ve done (and continue to do), and how much the community actually appreciates us. I thank you, and the supportive commentary I’ve seen was touching–and you know how cold and dead inside I am.

And you know, even if I didn’t work where I do, I would also be grateful to my agency. As a sixty-five year old gay man who lived through the worst of the plague days, I have nothing but respect and appreciation for any organization that does HIV work. Anyone who doesn’t? Absolute trash–and if they ever seroconverted, you can bet your ass they’d be beating down our doors2 for our help.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning while I wait for the thunderstorms.

  1. The street, not the land of the heroic dead. ↩︎
  2. And this, for the record, is why you never fucking hire straight people to run gay businesses. Period. ↩︎

Runaway Lover

Thursday and it’s not my last day in the office for the week; I have a department meeting tomorrow that I need to come in for. I may stay for a few hours after and do some work here, but on the other hand I may just get back in the car and head home. I guess we’ll see how I feel, but it would be incredibly convenient to get all my errands out of the way. We’re supposed to start getting rain from Polo tomorrow, and continue with flooding rains all weekend…so I am not going to want to leave the house that often. I do have to go get my vaccines Saturday morning–I figured if they make me woozy again like they always do, it’s better to be home. LSU’s game is against McNeese State Saturday night–their fifth night game in a row–and I think a lot of the other games this season will be at night again. All the media alarm bells after the Mississippi loss subsided with the trouncing of Texas A&M last week, but…the remaining schedule remains brutal.

Well, Sparky closed my browser for me (thanks, babe!) and I lost three paragraphs of this entry which I will now try to reconstruct. Sigh.

I was tired when I got home from work yesterday, Sparky was needy, and I just needed to sit for a minute last night before doing anything, but I got sucked into the news–both national and football–and several wormholes (is it just me, but are Youtube videos becoming more and more AI-generated?) opened up for me before I switched over to this HBO documentary series about Warner Brothers–and old Hollywood stuff always works as research for the book. I went to bed shortly after that, and didn’t do a damned bit of chores at all. The apartment is still pretty well kept-up, but there’s some cosmetic cleaning that needs doing, the dishwasher needs to be unloaded and reloaded again, and there’s another load of laundry that needs doing, too. I’ll have to take care of some of that tonight so this weekend I can primarily focus on writing and deeper cleaning issues (baseboards, etc.). The house is also currently being painted, so much as I would like to go outside in this cooler clime to clean the windows…probably not going to happen until the house is finished being painted. (I have to negotiate an obstacle course most days when I get home to get into the house.)

Today is also the first day of Halloween Horror Month, in which I try to make sure all my reading and streaming needs are horror-related. I know I am going to revisit Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street–always excellent choices–and it’s always fun to dip into horror, which I need to read more of. I am going to listen to Shadowland by Peter Straub on my trip next Friday to Alabama/Kentucky–can you believe it’s next week already? I can’t–and will take some other horror along to read while I am up there. I am going to start reading The House That Horror Built, and I think on the way home i may listen to a Grady Hendrix novel.

I also need to get back to writing, either on short stories or on the book. I’ve been focusing a lot on writing nonfiction–the newsletters–and while I have really been enjoying doing that (and my writing is improving, which is always a delightful thing), I need to get back on the fiction horse. I’ve kind of been letting my creativity recharge, after finishing that story last weekend, but I definitely need to be climbing back into the saddle again. Maybe tomorrow, during the rains. We’re supposed to get up to five inches over the next few days–but we shouldn’t have any flooding concerns if the rain is spread out. Five inches in two hours or less and the city is underwater.

And on that note, methinks I shall head into the spice mines. Hope you have a lovely Friday Eve, Constant Reader, and I will be back tomorrow morning before my meeting. See you then!

My God, Alan Ritchson is just ridiculously handsome.

I Deserve It

It’s very difficult to market books about social issues. How do you promote something like that without looking like you’re trying to cash in on a tragedy, or some horrific real world incident? I don’t urge people to read Murder in the Rue Chartres every time a hurricane threatens Louisiana/New Orleans, nor do I ever try to piggyback promotion of the book which talks about the Upstairs Fire with the tragedy’s anniversary, or any time the fire comes up on social media. I don’t like the idea of capitalizing on tragedy for capitalism. It makes me uncomfortable, and while I don’t judge people for doing that, it doesn’t sit right with me.

Yesterday, I wrote and sent out a newsletter inspired by the breaking news about the mishandled Cornell gang-rape situation. Rape is something I have always felt strongly about–against, for the record–because it’s such a bodily violation. Having something shoved inside you without your consent–it sends a shudder through my body and turns my stomach whenever I think about it. So, I talked about the book I wrote about a similar situation happening in a fictional Midwestern town with a strong high school sports culture. My intent wasn’t to promote the book, which would be a shitty thing to do; the intent was to call more attention to the fact this isn’t something new; the book is OLD. I started writing it in 2015, after Steubenville and Marysville. Almost immediately after I hit post and share, I saw someone on social media bitching about people using this Cornell gang-rape (call it by its real name) to promote their “shitty book1s.” I knew that was a risk I was running by talking about my book in the context of why I wrote it (I had started writing the essay originally after the on-line Rape Academy expose by CNN), but after I blocked her, I shrugged. If she wants to assign that kind of blame to an essay I wrote about rape culture through the context of a novel I wrote about it and why, so be it. Go ahead and put me on your “no-read” list; I’ll put you on my “blocked as a bitch” list. See how that works?

Congratulations on your purity, ma’am.

Although I guess hit dogs do holler. The reason I reacted so strongly was because I was concerned people would think that was what I was doing, and anxiety medication aside, I somehow still feel a need to justify that newsletter. The woman probably wasn’t even talking about me–she just popped up, unasked for, on one of my feeds. It’s a free country and she’s welcome to express herself however she wants to–but I am not required to see, read or interact with her on any level.

And frankly, if people are looking for more information on how bad the sexual assault horrors are–well, authors might be thinking hey, you may want to read this for my research. I researched the fuck out of this over the many years I spent working on my book, but I would also direct people to Jon Krakauer’s Missoula, which examines the relationship between college athletics and sweeping rapes under the rug to protect players. LSU has had these problems over the years–it’s part of the package of why Les Miles was fired as football coach (although the cover-ups were okay as long as the team was winning at the national level), and there’s a rapist on campus today who is on the football team.

But all of this did make me think more about the marketing aspect of publishing, and how I’ve never been good at doing it.

I generally don’t talk about my books with an air to selling them to people; I don’t, as I made clear in my essay, selling books is generally the last thing I think about when it comes to my books. (Nothing bugs me more than when someone says “sell me your book!”) I don’t know how to talk about them in ways that will sell them; a manager I had in my twenties told me “you could sell ice to Eskimoes2” but that was just me being me, you know? I know I’m supposed to use every tool at my disposal to market myself and my books but that isn’t something I’ve ever been comfortable doing; to me, it’s cringe. I always think nobody cares and so I talk about my work and my writing in ways that I find interesting. I can’t write something if I’m not interested in it, and that usually isn’t an issue; I can almost always find something interesting (to me, at any rate) in most subjects…but I never, ever set out to write a blog or a newsletter with the thought this will sell me some books.

My mind isn’t wired that way. I guess other people’s must be? But I also don’t see the issue with writing about a societal problem through the lens of having researched the topic and being moved to write a novel to share these stories with people. I didn’t say buy this book, but rather I wrote this book and this is why I did, and the lifelong education on the subject that led me to write it, to try to make sense of something that is completely alien to me.3

I also wasn’t raised to “sing out Louise”4. Being raised to be modest and not accept compliments hasn’t been easy for me to process out of my brain/psyche, but I am getting better about it. But if you always downplay your achievements and successes, why would anyone else play them up? I also had that terrible anxiety-driven “pick me” bullshit going on, too; there’s nothing wrong with tooting your own horn so long as you don’t make it your entire personality, as so many seem to do. There’s a happy medium in there where I can live and exist, and I hope that someday I’ll be able to find that place where I can feel comfortable. One can hope, at any rate, right?

There was definitely a clown show on Capital Hill yesterday, and good ole Cornpone Kennedy had his stupid ass in it up to his neck. MAGA is such a joke; they are so not serious, but they are just as dangerous as a manic three year old on a massive sugar high who got into his parents’ gun cabinet. Thank God they are all so stupid and inept and incompetent; it’s like we got the Hogan’s Heroes brand of fascists here. Imagine if they were as smart as they are evil.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great day, Constant Reader and I will check back with you tomorrow.

This photo, from the aftermath of the California fires, never ceases to amaze me.
  1. Anyone dismissing any group of books as “shitty” is always going to get my ire up. ↩︎
  2. Is that offensive now? If so, my apologies, but it’s a direct quote. ↩︎
  3. It did occur to me while I was writing the essay that the reason women have always felt comfortable around me is they somehow sense I’m not interested. ↩︎
  4. A friend of mine says this Gypsy quote all the time, and there is something to it. If you don’t talk well about yourself, who will? ↩︎

Nobody’s Perfect

Tuesday morning and we survived Monday, did we not? It wasn’t a terrible day. WE were busier than usual in the clinic, so the day passed relatively quickly. I also made an appointment to get my flu and COVID shots for the year for this Saturday; if I am going to react to them, what better way to do so then in my easy chair while watching college football and dipping some more into The Dead Zone? That will also get me out of the house on Saturday, so I may as well run other errands while I am out. I have an in-person meeting Friday, so I am probably going to do all my hours in the office–at least, that’s what I am thinking today; that may change between now and then. Paul went to the gym last night shortly after I got home, so when he got home from that we queued up this week’s Lanterns, which was wild; I really do enjoy this show and not just because Aaron Pierre and Kyle Chandler are very good looking men. It doesn’t hurt, though; I’m not saying that! But it’s very well written, acted, and produced; perhaps the best DC television series I’ve ever seen (I may not be remembering some others, but I don’t think so). I slept very well last night and feel a bit Tuesday-ish this morning, but not terribly bad.

I checked the call for submissions for the story I finished over the weekend and was pleasantly surprised to see the deadline isn’t Thursday, but rather the 31st. That relieves some of the pressure to get it finished and polished, but doesn’t mean I should wait until the last minute, either. I know there are tense and point of view issues with it, so what I am thinking is I should let it sit until this weekend–something else I can do in case I have a reaction to the shots is edit the hard copy with post-it notes and a yellow highlighter. (Yes, I am old school.) I am also glad I checked because the word limit is four thousand, not five. The story checks in now at 4126 words, so it needs tightening for sure. I also got caught up on emails yesterday, which was a very lovely thing. I don’t know why I am so reluctant to deal with emails these days, but I imagine it has everything to do with the hundreds of emails I used to get weekly: who knew volunteer work came with PTSD? I sure didn’t.

I know now. Lesson learned. I eventually always figure it out; it may take me years, but I do.

Today is a slow one in the clinic, so I should be able to get caught up on administrative details. I can also tell I’m feeling better, physically and mentally, because I am keeping up with my paperwork and everything. I finally have a system, and it works beautifully; much better than the disorganized and inefficient way I was doing it–and it was, indeed, a rut I felt into while I wasn’t in top form and just surviving every day (I don’t longingly dream of retirement anymore, either), which was a deeply unpleasant way to live.

I also scheduled a newsletter for this morning; you can click here to read it. I have been working on this one for a very long time; it’s about the incidents that led to me writing #shedeservedit, and what I was trying to do with the book. The Cornell situation pushed me back to the essay and I finished it; I held off on sending it out because I didn’t want anyone to think I was trying to promote the book off the back of that poor victim, but talking about the book and why I wrote it isn’t promoting it; it’s about exploring a major societal issue we don’t seem terribly interested in solving: men’s entitled expectations towards women’s bodies: an unconscious woman isn’t an invitation for rape.

And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow morning.

Amazing

Here we are, the last Monday in September and it feels like fall came to New Orleans this past weekend; we’ll see how long it lasts. But this absence of humidity is so lovely it just makes me happy to be alive. When I barbecued last night, it was so lovely outside were the Saints not playing I would have taken The Dead Zone outside and stayed out there. The days are also starting to get shorter, too. Yesterday turned out to be a nice day. I got up in the morning and did some cleaning and organizing and chores while the LSU game played again on the television, and so managed to get some things done. I cleaned up a lot of computer files, for example, and organized the desktop. I also worked on some newsletters (my rage about Cornell driving some of them, of course; rage so often fuels my writing), and did a little work on my fiction, too. The weekend was overall lovely, and naturally, I didn’t want to get out from under the pile of blankets this morning. I feel well rested this morning, too, which is also kind of nice–even yesterday I was feeling a bit run down still. We’re busy today in the clinic, but we also have a mostly slow rest of the week. I also had some things delivered, but I have to run uptown after work tonight, and will make another stop to make some more groceries; odds and ends we’ve run out of over the weekend.

The Saints lost yesterday, but they could have won had they not fumbled away winning chances in the fourth quarter. I never think about the Super Bowl with the Saints anymore–actually, not since they actually did win it sixteen years ago (still can’t wrap my mind around the Saints winning the Super Bowl, but they actually did once, in a magical season that had the whole city walking on air). But cheering the Saints on when they lose is a time-honored New Orleans tradition, and one that most likely will never get old. I like our new quarterback and am willing to give him more than another chance. I also like that his last name is pronounced shuck, which pleases me to no end.

And we watched the two episodes of American Horror Story: 13, and it’s weird…but is it wrong that I kind of figured out the big twist at the end of episode three, hence the cliffhanger (and why we had three episodes drop at the same time, and why episode three was only twenty-two minutes long). After Ben, the hospice worker, survives the plane crash that opens the show, and shows up for his new job at a big, imposing old apartment building in New York (think: the Bramford in Rosemary’s Baby), and as soon as Jessica Lange introduced herself as the dead Constance from the original season (and several others since)…I thought he died on the plane and this is the portal to Hell (I was also getting hints of The Sentinel, a 70s horror film, with a sort of similar set-up), and when they descended down into the basement at the end of Episode 3 and the big reveal1….I didn’t gasp, I thought, of course.

I do hate-watch Murphy shows at this point, and am pleasantly surprised when one of his shows doesn’t go off the rails. I suspect this one is overly ambitious, and will go off the rails relatively soon and whatever sense it made at one point…it won’t after that. It’s kind of like rooting for the Saints; you’ll have some fun, but you’ll end up disappointed.

LSU won, but dropped out of the Top Ten to number 11 in the rankings; Florida jumped, so they had to be ahead of Mississippi, whom they beat, and LSU, whom Mississippi beat the week before. It’s all stuff and nonsense at this point in the season, anyway–rankings and so forth aren’t important this early in the season at any rate–but it’s also interesting how the SEC games this season are either close, or blow outs. I have to say, I’ve been impressed by Florida so far this season, and they looked really good on the last two Saturdays, and the Florida-Auburn game’s outcome two weeks ago makes a bit more sense now, and Auburn looks a lot better than they did after that game.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a marvelous Monday, Constant Reader, and I will be back again tomorrow morning, bright and early. See you then!

The ceiling of one of the temples at Luxor. Sigh, Egypt.
  1. It also galls me that Murphy also casts so many queer actors–because I want to support them so they get more work, like Joey Pollari, who is playing the lead this time. It really is a ouroboros, isn’t it? ↩︎

Don’t Tell Me

Sunday morning in the Lost Apartment and I feel…slacker-ish this morning for some reason. Yesterday was a simply lovely day, from beginning to end, and I did manage to get some things done. Paul went to a show last night in the Quarter–a work thing–and so I was here all by my lonesome after about half-time or so of the LSU game (they won; GEAUX TIGERS!), and there were a lot of interesting games and outcomes yesterday, too. I did some reading, some writing, and some cleaning, and somehow wound up staying up later than I’d intended. I also got up later this morning than usual; but that’s also on me. The Saints play this afternoon, and I need to run to make groceries at some point this morning, too, but that’s not a big deal. I just need to get motivated.

Good luck with that, Gregalicious.

As I mentioned, LSU won, beating Texas A&M handily 35-6. It was only 14-3 at halftime, but again the Tigers had a big third quarter and put the game away. The defense looked impressive, and the offense misfired a few times, but overall, the Tigers looked dominant. We also don’t know how good or bad Texas A&M is this season (they lost to Kentucky in College Station last week)–but we also don’t know about Mississippi, either, after Florida embarrassed them in Gainesville yesterday 52-28 (!!!). Auburn beat Vanderbilt, and I caught the end of the Mississippi State-Missouri game, which MSU won with a strong defensive stand in the fourth quarter. I watched Texas-Tennessee, which came down to the last play, and Georgia embarrassed Oklahoma (shame) while Alabama buried South Carolina. I also caught the highlights of Iowa winning at Michigan and Wisconsin surprising Penn State. Overall, a very exciting day of college football. LSU takes a break from the SEC next weekend, playing McNeese State, while there are some other great games, too. I do love college football.

And yes, yesterday morning during the battle of the orange-and-white UT’s, I finished the first draft of my story, which pleased me to no end. It’s about forty-one hundred words, but they are mostly good words, and now I need to edit and revise. Again, it’s a very long shot, but I do enjoy writing, and it’s always nice to make very good progress on something. I may do some editing this morning after I post this and before I summon the energy and motivation to actually make the grocery list and head to the store. I also need to order some things to be delivered this morning, too.

While I mostly managed to avoid the news yesterday, I did occasionally check in on social media to see what was going on and that’s when I came across the horrific story of the Cornell 7….remind me about the masculinity crisis again? The real masculinity crisis lies in how they treat women, and so many of them fail. Cannot IMAGINE why so many women would choose the bear, can you? It’s hilarious, I’ve been trying to work my way into my newsletter essay about masculinity and my failures to be the traditional male in this patriarchical society and finally realize something about myself while reading up on the Cornell horror (and yes, there’s a rapist on the LSU football team–which is appalling–but I am not talking about that case because I’ve not had a chance to “do my own research,”–but I fail to see any research or reading that would make LSU look good, frankly)–the reason I didn’t feel particularly boy-oriented was because I never understood why we weren’t supposed to like girls at all, and that didn’t change after puberty, either, when girls were reduced to their breasts, ass, and fuckability, which is also part of the reason I wrote #shedeservedit, and now I have some more things to discuss there. (And no, I’m not saying my view of women wasn’t curdled by exposure to male-centering and women-dismissal; I’ve said and behaved in ways towards women that are toxic, but I learned and would like to believe I’ve unlearned a lot of my upbringing and social pressuring.)

I spent some more time yesterday with The Dead Zone, and John Smith is one of my favorite Stephen King characters. I am remembering, too, while I reread how much I’ve always loved this novel and how big of a fan I used to be (not getting into it now, or maybe ever), and that incredible run of great novels he had from Carrie through Misery. Maybe I should revisit another one, too? It’s been a while since I’ve revisited Firestarter….

I was reminded yesterday also about Richard Speck. He murdered nurses in Chicago when I was five years old, and I remember the horror vividly (I also remember when the news broke about Sharon Tate and the other victims on Cielo Drive in the Hollywood Hills). I’ve never read up on the Speck murders, but I read Helter Skelter as a teenager and it was terrifying–I’ve generally avoided reading anything else on the Manson family since. I remember, in both cases, how upset my mother was–a rural country girl living in Chicago with generalized anxiety disorder–and again wonder how much it must have terrified her when we weren’t home. Mothers worry, of course, but I wish I’d known when she was alive about the anxiety; I would have worked harder to ease her mind. (I also believe the anxiety shortened her life, but…she did make it to eighty-one.) Does anyone know of any good books or writing about Speck?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and GEAUX SAINTS!

Candy Perfume Girl

Here we are on a college football Saturday1 (GEAUX TIGERS!) and all is quiet in the Lost Apartment. I ran errands yesterday, got the mail, picked up my copy of the new Tananarive Due (yay! Hello, October Halloween Horror Month!), and after working at home, I did the laundry and cleaned up around here–somehow the kitchen had somehow gotten out of control again–while the Real Housewives screamed at each other on my television. I don’t know why I find that so entertaining, but I do and I am not apologizing for it. (And yes, I am going to write about it at some point.) We also watched The Traitors: New Blood and started the new American Horror Story: 13, which hurray for Jessica Lange, and hurray for Joey Pollari, who is playing the male lead–been a fan since catching the young openly gay actor in American Crime, an excellent anthology series from the 10s that didn’t draw near the audience it deserved for its writing and incredible cast, which included Regina King in every season. (I’ll watch Regina King in anything.)

I also went back through the book cases and massive TBR stacks to pick out an ambition list of reading for October, especially given how little I’ve been reading lately. My rereads are going to be The Dead Zone (long overdue for a reread, at least since 2016) by Stephen King and The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson. The new to me reads, if I manage, will be Christina Henry’s The House that Horror Built, A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher, and Shadowlands by Peter Straub, which I’ve never gotten around to in the forty years and more it’s been available (people always say their favorite Straub is Ghost Story; mine is Floating Dragon); I started it when it was first out in paperback, but never finished. I guess it didn’t grab me, but I grabbed another copy when I read a really interesting piece about it sometime earlier this century. (I also met Straub at Stokercon in Nassau, Long Island at least fifteen or sixteen years ago–the same conference I first met a pre-Gone Girl Gillian Flynn. Both were delightful and charming.)

I actually started my reread of The Dead Zone, and while I only got a few pages into the prologue, I was immediately reminded of why I love King, and that Johnny Smith is probably one of my favorite King characters, and while this book was always overshadowed in my mind by The Stand, which is my favorite King, as the books were released consecutively. I remember back when King was still a new writer and unappreciated by critics and reviewers while his books were literally flying off the shelves–one of my English professors in college, was very disdainful when he noticed I was carrying a copy of Firestarter with me, again shattering any thought I may have had about pursuing English as an undergraduate major because the professors were the worst kinds of snobs and my fellow English majors put no thought into their reading or analysis that wasn’t spoon-fed to them by the professors, whose egos definitely needed stroking (they all had mediocre minds).2 The irony is that while King has always done work of the highest quality, he was unappreciated while he was doing his actual best work. That run of novels, beginning with Carrie and ending with It, is probably unmatched by any other author in the canon of US authors; certainly in horror and crime….and those earlier works stand the test of time; I’ve reread all of those books numerous times.

Yes, a revisitation of a King classic is de rigeur.

Yesterday was a stunningly beautiful day. When I walked out to the car to run said errands, I was amazed at how gorgeous is was outside: warm but not excessively hot, and a coolness to the air that was very refreshing. Then I got in the car, started her up and looked at the temperature gauge and laughed. It was 86 degrees outside–but it wasn’t humid, which makes all the difference. (It’s currently 77 degrees outside; the kind of weather where you want to sit outside and read….or would, if I had a comfortable place to sit outside and read.) This is how the summer breaks us here. Anyway, as I drove around I was reminded again of how beautiful this city actually is, and again how lucky I am to live here so I can be continually inspired by this stunningly beautiful city.

I ordered myself a pair of Apple Beats Pro to finish off the gift card Dad sent me for my birthday. One of the most annoying thing to me about the new iPhone I got last year was that wired earbuds don’t work when plugged into them–and besides, I can’t use earbuds and my hearing aids at the same time. The other night when Paul came home I realized he uses over-the-ear headphones that wirelessly connect to his phone and a long overdue lightbulb turned on over my head. I can use over the ear headphones too, so I went ahead and ordered them. They came this week, but alas, I haven’t had time to set them up yet, so I intend to do that this morning. Just in time, too–since the weather has changed (hopefully for good) and I can go for walks now with them. My goal is to go back to the gym in January, and I need to start building up my stamina before that return.

At this point, kicking Ed Sheeran when he’s down is a bit mean and bullying, but I did laugh when his shows at Kraft’s stadium wound up canceled because of this huge nor’easter heading for New England, which has me worried about my friends up there. Take care everyone, don’t take unnecessary chances, and stay safe up there, okay?

And on that note, I am going to get cleaned up and head into the spice mines for the day. Hope you have a marvelous Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be here bright and early before the Saints game tomorrow. See you then!

Love this image of birds over a bayou near Lake Borgne.
  1. Very bad news for the Tennessee Vols, though–Trump is coming to their game with Texas today, and wherever he goes, the home team loses. I don’t like either team, but will watch and hope for a good game. ↩︎
  2. My college experience remains the biggest disappointment of my life. I expected so much more than a continuation of high school, you know? But…I also went to two really shitty colleges. ↩︎

To Have and Not to Hold

Friday work at home day blog and here I am in the Lost Apartment, sipping coffee in between the windows. Sparky’s sleeping in a puddle at my feet and I am very excited for the day and the weekend. There are some excellent games to watch on Saturday (GEAUX TIGERS!), and of course, tonight there’s a new episode of Traitors: New Blood, which I can’t wait to see. After bingeing so many seasons, it really is torturous having to wait a week for a new episode. Heavy sigh, but that’s okay, really. Bingeing has really changed how I watch television, hasn’t it? We had started the new season of The Gentleman on Netflix last week, but despite the appeal of one Theo James (Christ, there should be a law against being that pretty), I didn’t get into the season 2 premiere, and haven’t exactly been itching to get back to it for some reason. I was thinking I might go back and watch the earlier seasons of The White Lotus so I’m not mindlessly scrolling through Youtube videos. It’s not only addictive, but it’s time consuming.

I worked more diligently on the short story last night, and almost have my new first draft finished (even though I am using the same title, the same story but with a different perspective, which I think is working). I am pretty pleased with it; it’s a very strong draft I should be able to get finished later today. It’s amazing how much I enjoy writing, but my process has changed–as I have changed–and it takes me longer to write than it used to. I used to be able to average about three thousand1 per writing day when working on a book; short stories are a different animal, but I don’t remember it taking me this long to complete a first draft of a short story; it’s a do-over of one I finished years ago but couldn’t place anywhere, so I tore it all apart and put it back together completely differently. I personally think it works better now, but I won’t be surprised if the anthology I am writing it for doesn’t accept it. Not that it isn’t good, but it’s not the kind of crime story people usually are looking for when compiling an anthology of them.

When Paul got home last night, we finished watching a documentary called A Killer Story, which is wild; true crime documentaries are absolutely terrifying to watch, especially when you see how easily a prosecutor can convict someone entirely on a theory with little to no evidence to corroborate their theory of the crime. Documentaries, though, can easily be manipulated to convince the viewer of their point of view, something I’ve noticed before. (One of Americans’ biggest fears is wrongful imprisonment, along with not being believed; being wrongly accused of murder and put on trial is definitely terrifying.)

I slept pretty well last night, even if Sparky got me up before seven. I’m a bit physically tired this morning–the Achilles tendons again–but I know once I get cleaned up I’ll feel more recharged. I have a meeting this morning, after which I am going to go run some errands. It being 9/25, the Krewe of Dolly is having a second line in the Quarter today for our departed Queen, Dolly Parton. If I could walk that far, I might have gone down to participate; it’s the kind of fun thing New Orleans loves to do at the drop of a hat. I also saw last night that Jamie Davis has come within four points of beating Julia Letlow, the Harkonnen and janky governor endorsed corrupt piece of MAGA shit, and Louisiana is getting fed up with all of this bullshit. Turnout will be key in Louisiana; if the Bill Cassidy supporters who are still pissed over the MAGA turn on him don’t vote, or vote for Davis…we could have our first Democratic senator from Louisiana in over twelve years. The data centers in north Louisiana and the spaceport on the coast and all the NDA’s everyone involved signed (Letlow owns stock in both companies) so the sweetheart deals Janky Jeff gave them will never be exposed has even Louisiana voters, notoriously blasé about political corruption, aren’t happy about how blatant this all is…it’s so blatant it’s insulting. And the way Janky Jeff keeps fucking with the LSU athletic department isn’t good, either.

I am cautiously optimistic about the midterms, but know there’s going to be some fuckery involved.

And on that note, I am going to have some breakfast and take a shower before starting my work day. I’ll run errands this morning after our meeting, and then come home from that to sit in my chair and go over paperwork this afternoon. The coffee is starting to kick in, too. So, on that note, tis off to mine spice with me, and will return again tomorrow morning. Have the loveliest of Fridays, Constant Reader!

Ah, the beauty of youth. But they just look like pretty children to me.
  1. On the other hand, last night I managed over two thousand words, which wasn’t bad.
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Sky Fits Heaven

Thursday last day in the office for the week blog. Yesterday wasn’t unpleasant; I paid the bills, as one does once one has the funds, and it was very quiet around the office yesterday, which was odd. I didn’t feel terribly tired at any point during the day, which is always a pleasant surprise. October and Spooky Season are just around the corner, and I think I will go ahead and enjoy my annual October Halloween Horror Month. I generally reread The Haunting of Hill House and a classic Stephen King every October, but my reading focus just hasn’t been there for a while. I think it might be because I am out of practice with both writing and reading, and every time I start reading something I think oh I should be writing and that brings me to a crashing halt, every time. My copy of the new Tananarive Due should be arriving today or tomorrow; so I am definitely going to read that for Horror Month. I need to look through my horror TBR pile, and maybe I should give Peter Straub’s Shadowland another try. (I started it when it had just been released in mass market paperback, and for some reason it didn’t click with me; maybe I can listen to it in the car on my drive north next year, take the physical copy with to keep reading if I don’t finish it in the car…should see how long it is, shouldn’t I?)

I was a bit tired after getting home from running errands last evening–my headphones arrived; more on that later–and putting away the paltry and meager bags of groceries I’d made for sixty dollar, heavy sigh, and things were on sale–and so I made a Sparky bed out of my lap while I caught up on the news and watched some videos bashing Ed Sheeran (which will, at some point, I imagine, get old) before Paul got home late, and we hung out for a bit before I went up to bed. I slept well, too–woke up at four rather than three thirty this morning, but was able to get back to sleep without a problem. I feel alert and awake and ready to go, which is quite unusual for Thursday morning. I’ve even had breakfast already and feel pretty good. Today is the busiest day in the clinic for the week, and so I imagine I’ll be a bit worn down when I get home tonight. I am going to head uptown to get the mail, so I won’t, hopefully, have to get in the car this weekend. Huzzah for the convenience of deliveries!

I did work on my short story some yesterday–not as much as I would have preferred, but my mind was buggy and I was tired, so I really just started revising what I had already written, which was more than a little bit on the messy side. I am trying to write more fiction in the present tense, which seems to be more common/popular these days, and my sweet spot is past tense/first person…so trying things differently, I think, is kind of important to my continued development as a writer. Anyway, I noticed the prose sometimes slipped from present to past tense, and sometimes even from first person to third. Honestly, my first drafts are so fucking dreadful….which is why nobody ever sees my first drafts.

It’s in the seventies this morning, which will have to do for the transition to fall. They’re saying we’ll get colder weather and a lot of rain next week, which is fine.

And on that note, I should get going on my day. I’ll be here again tomorrow morning, from my workspace at home, and I hope to see you then, Constant Reader.