Open Your Heart

Thursday and my last day in the office for the week. Huzzah? Huzzah. I slept well again last night–I’m loving all this good sleep this week, seriously–and feel pretty good for a Thursday morning. MY morning is busy today at the office, but not so much this afternoon, so I can get caught up on paperwork and other odds and ends before I go home. I have to stop and make a small amount of groceries on my way home tonight, and then I can chill out. The new season of Reacher has started airing, and we should get some new episodes in other shows we are watching. I think when I get home tonight I am going to get caught up on reality television before Paul and I settle in for the evening with our shows.

I sent out a new newsletter out yesterday (you can click the blue to read it if you would like), about the book of essays on soap operas I recently finished reading and thoroughly enjoyed, Love in the Afternoon and the Evening! It felt good to get another one out–I really do need to answer emails–and I will probably do more newsletters about soaps and aspects of them I enjoyed (murder mysteries, hot guys, etc.) in the future. I need to get back to my essays about masculinity, don’t I? I really do need to sit down and map them out. I also want to finish that essay on gay v. queer. Maybe this weekend? I also want to write one to send out on my birthday next week, not that I have anything witty or wise to say about getting older. Surely, every thing has already been said, and better? Ah, well, that won’t stop me, will it? Not in the least.

The big news is that I finished Chapter Four last night! I wrote over a thousand words last night and polished it off; now I need to go back and make it more cohesive and smooth the continuity–I’m not editing for language or length (I will change some of that, though, I can’t help myself) this time through; it’s just easier to do this continuity shit now before the manuscript gets longer. It also dramatically improved my mood, too. It always feels so good when I have a good writing session! Work was okay yesterday, too–not very busy but just busy enough to make the day pass relatively quickly. The drive home was smooth and easy and frigidly aired1; I also did some chores last night as well as provided a lap for le Sparkster. Paul was late coming home from a board meeting, so we were on our own last night and he was needy, as always (Sparky, i mean). It was marvelous coming down to a clean kitchen this morning–you’d think I’d remember that and make sure I do that every morning, but…sigh. That’s not how I roll, clearly.

Two classic books from the 1970s were on-sale for their ebook editions this week and I got them both: Jaws and Audrey Rose. Both books were what we would call “viral” today; Jaws more so than Audrey Rose, which is a reincarnation story (which has always interested me; it makes more sense than spending eternity singing praises to God2). I didn’t get to go see movies a lot when I was a kid, and of course, before cable and streaming pretty much the only way to see old films was to catch them in their edited for television versions…so, if a movie was based on a book, I would just read the book. (Or the novelization, as I did with The Last of Sheila.) I read Jaws when it came out in paperback, and enjoyed it. Everyone was talking about the book, and it was a huge bestseller. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and even read more of Peter Benchley (The Deep is one I’d love to revisit). I didn’t know much about sharks other than what people would say when we’d be at the beach in Florida in the summer time (trivia note: two of my cousins were extras in Jaws II), so I, as always, looked them up in the World Book Encyclopedia and all the associated entries. We did see the movie when it was released; it was one of those “after church matinees” Mom used to take us to after a lunch at Ponderosa), and the theater was so crowded they had ushers finding seats for people. The only spot with three together was the exact center of the front row….

To watch a shark movie.

It was probably the most terrifying experience I had in a movie theater until some of the Washington Monument stunts in Spider-Man: Homecoming, during which I had to look away because the camera work was so good that it felt like I was on the monument, and yeah, no way, no how, no thanks.

Is Jaws considered a horror novel/film? I mean, it is a monster movie. Horror was certainly having a day in the 1970s, wasn’t it? (I use to call them occult books back then, because I didn’t know that horror was an actual genre until later in the decade, when the media began calling Stephen King a “horror novelist.”)

Audrey Rose isn’t as remembered, partly because the film wasn’t as good as Jaws and it didn’t become a cultural touchstone. It was a big book in the 1970s–I remember it even had commercial ads on television–and it was marketed as straight up horror but it kind of wasn’t. I don’t remember being scared by the book (which I barely remember), more that it was more haunting than anything else, sad and disturbing and melancholic. Anyway, I love reincarnation stories—which goes back to Dark Shadows, as so many things do in my tastes. It’ll be interesting to revisit it; I looked at the first page last night on my Kindle and saw that, yes, indeed–it has a haunting, Gothic sensibility to it, that I always enjoy.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow morning before I start my work-at-home duties. See you then!

Louisiana has the most spectacular sunsets
  1. It really is astonishing what having working air in the car makes. Honestly. ↩︎
  2. I do wonder how things went viral before the Internet. ↩︎

White Heat

Pay my bills, pay my telephone bills, pay my bi-ills….

There’s always a song cue in my life; and every time Pay the Bills Wednesday rolls around, I always hear “Bills, Bills, Bills” by Destiny’s Child in my head, even though the song is about a leech boyfriend, not losing a lot of your paycheck to bills…but that big Entergy bill is worth every penny in the summer. I have to say air conditioning is a gift from heaven that we should not turn out backs on, or scoff at. Now that the air is working again in my car, it’s made a huge difference. I wasn’t sweaty and crabby when I got home from work yesterday; I felt good. Maybe it was also because I remembered the injection was due on Monday (I forgot Monday with all the car stuff), and did it yesterday morning? I don’t know, I don’t need to know why I feel so much better, but all of these things could easily be related. Feeling how the car a/c works now has me wondering how long the a/c wasn’t functioning properly? It took that truly nasty heat dome thing to make me finally realize something was wrong with it.

Yesterday wasn’t a bad day. I only added 300 words last night to the book, but that’s because I know the rest of the chapter is going to be hard. (This is the part when I’m on deadline when I just type finish this scene later, which always makes me want to cry to the heavens when the deadline is soon and I get to that in the revision…I know I am not the only person who does this, either.) But I do feel like the better I am feeling, the easier the writing is going to be? Does that make sense?

Are all these heterosexual hockey romance shows doing as well as Heated Rivalry did? I know they aren’t a cultural phenomenon the way the queer hockey show and I literally have seen no conversations about any of them, anywhere. So typically Hollywood to get the wrong message, isn’t it? “People must have watched for the hockey! IMAGINE if the romances were STRAIGHT? We’ll be printing money!” Yeah, no, that’s not the right lesson….but at least when those shows fail, we won’t get blamed for them; which may make them think even deeper about Heated Rivalry’s virality, but I doubt it. They’ll just think it was a fluke, or it was the cast. Which is good for the cast, of course, but not so much those of us who want to see same-sex relationships. But these are the people who saw the huge success of Barbie and thought the takeaway was “more toy movies!” No, it meant you finally gave women a reason to go to the movies and they turned up in droves…as well as anyone else who wanted to see a good film with a feminist message critiquing modern society and culture.

It’s astonishing how bad Hollywood can be at originality and creativity. Billy Wilder would be making pictures for television now if he were in his prime currently because his movies wouldn’t be seen as bankable.

Can I just say that Abdul el-Sayed is hot, hot, hot? Then again, he’s also very smart and quick on his feet, which is even more hot, in my opinion. Interesting, though how the centrist battle–cry of vote blue no matter who only applies, apparently, to white straight men. These are the same kind of Democrats who tried to water down the New Deal and did water down the Affordable Care Act…even if we do take congress back this fall from the Unwashed Flat Ass Party doesn’t mean they’ll accomplish anything because, well, Fetterman and other Democrats like him. There’s always at least one Trump sympathizer running for the Senate to sabotage any and everything and to completely back him (looking at you, racist Vindman with the skank wife in Florida), because we will always have the Sinema and Manchin sell-outs (I really hope the rest of her life is even more miserable than she deserves, and she should never go out in public without being heckled; same with Manchin. I hate her, more, though, not because she’s a woman because she’s an out bisexual who stabbed her own community in the back repeatedly to stand with McConnell and Trump like the syphilitic quisling skank1 she is.)

Furious is really good, y’all. It goes far beyond the usual “FBI agent starts tracking serial killer” trope, by getting more deeply into who Alice Black is as a character, why she left the police, and why she is the way that she is–cold, driven, thoroughly professional without empathy, which can be hard to watch when she’s interrogating a teenager who witnessed her father’s murder–but we know why she’s the way she is…she is working her way through PTSD from an abusive relationship, and it’s an extraordinary performance by the always underrated Emmy Rossum. And given the motivations of the killer, I’m not really sure she qualifies as a serial killer–because, yes, the bodies are piling up, but their connection is through her having been trafficked as a child…so yes, she is a very clever and vicious killer, but at the same time she is a victim and her tormentors are horrible people who would never see justice for what they did…another stinging indictment of our society and culture, really.

Injustice for one is injustice for all. I was taught that in grade school. I guess my public education was “woke,” even as it indoctrinated us all in white supremacy and American Exceptionalism.

I am very sorry to add Nicholas Hoult, whom I’ve enjoyed watching since Warm Bodies, to the “dead-to-me-will-never-watch-again” fake queer ally list. Hope your HBO check from the Chatelaine of Castle Hate is worth it. *Cough* Sydney Sweeney *cough*. This is why it is impossible for queer people to ever completely trust straight people–they will always choose their wallets over any “alliance” with a marginalized group. A shame, because I loved Superman, but …no views, clicks, or money from me going forward. The thing these people forget is that we never do. We also never forgive. Even an apology–which won’t be coming, believe you me–and withdrawal from the hate project won’t suffice for me.

You see, I believe people when they tell me who they are. Bye bye, Felicia! You’re not an ally if you’re only one when it doesn’t affect your bottom line. Thanks but no thanks.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check back in with you tomorrow

I’ve had a crush on gorgeous Latino hunk/actor/model William Levy since he was on Dancing with the Stars…can you blame me?
  1. Bisexual erasure is bad enough without skanks like her making them all look bad. ↩︎

Where’s the Party

Tuesday morning and how is everyone and everything? I’m okay, thanks for asking. I picked up the car yesterday—it was less than they quoted me—and yes, the a/c now is back to Frigidaire settings. I got in the car yesterday, started it (they had left the a/c on turned up all the way) and by the time I was backing out o my parking place, I had to turn it down. I turned it down twice more before I got home. It’s going to need more work, but not immediately and this repair work can be planned for, rather than dropping into my lap like a meteorite from space. I feel a bit run down this morning–I think subconscious anxiety worked on me all day, because I was very tired before I went to bed last night and I feel some of that still this morning.

We started watching Furious, a new show about an FBI agent (Emmy Rossum) who gets pulled into a case by her former police detective partner, and she is the one who puts two cases together and realizes the same person committed both crimes; we also see the killer’s perspective. I’ve always been a fan of Ms. Rossum, who has a startling range–I said to Paul, watching last night, “SO weird that she’s the girl from Phantom of the Opera.” It’s quite good, at least so far, so we’ll be continuing with it, while we wait for our next episodes to drop. We also finished House of the Dragon last night, and (spoiler) it was lovely to see Ormund Hightower get his deserved end (as much as I love James Norton). I was pretty much too tired to so much of anything last night, but I think another good night’s sleep will make me right as rain.

Tonight I hope to get back to work on writing; as I have repeatedly said, my brain wasn’t in a place for me to do much of anything other than organize computer files while I watched television. Paul and Sparky were also sleepy and tired (when isn’t Sparky, though?), so we all just kind of hung out in the living room while we watched last night. I am also realizing that it wasn’t a normal weekend for me in the first place, since I had no car, which was kind of disorienting. It’s interesting how a disruption to my routine can be; with all the hullabaloo around the car lately and yesterday, I forgot that it was injection day, which also could have had something to do with that weird off-feeling yesterday. This morning I took care of it, and I am already feeling better. Is it a placebo effect? Possibly, but I always feel better after an injection. We’ll see how I sleep tonight and how I feel tomorrow morning. (I did only hit snooze once this morning, but that was also because I remembered that I needed to do my injection before I left for the office this morning.) Or is the coffee hitting? One can never really be sure, can one?

But we’re slow in the clinic today and tomorrow, so I will have lots of time to get caught up on my work today. I am going to go ahead and accept the fact that yesterday was not in my control and that’s why I was off-balance, tired, and so completely unproductive. Hopefully I’ll have the energy tonight to get some cleaning and writing done, before watching television and going to bed. (Sparky will need some lap time, undoubtedly, though.)

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Ruby Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I will be back tomorrow on what is once again Pay the Bills Wednesday. Till then!

New Orleans is one of the most beautiful cities in North America, even in the mist and rain.

True Blue

Monday morning after a car-free (yes, not a typo) weekend, and I have to take a Lyft to work this morning. Not a big deal, really; just a matter of timing. I left my work badge in the car when I dropped it off–it never occurred to me to take it, because I didn’t think they’d keep the car all weekend, either. Not a big deal. The big deal will be trying to figure out when I can go pick the car up once it’s finished as I have clients scattered throughout the day, and picking the car up will require another ride. Sigh. But at least I’ll have the car back and I can make some groceries on the eay

I also sent out a new newsletter yesterday, which you can read here. It’s about The Vampire Lestat, which we finished and thoroughly enjoyed, and really, Sam Reid is everything. It felt good to get that sent out, and I also was able to work on the book some yesterday, too. I also read some more of the book I am reading, which I am enjoying and savoring, and probably reading too slow because the language and voice are so hypnotic. I also upgraded the operating systems of both my laptop and desktop; who knew these upgades would, for once, actually be convenient? I was never able to access the back-up hard drive from the laptop, but now I can! Which means I can work on cleaning up my files while in my easy chair and watching television, whenever my mind doesn’t want to work too hard, I can do that. Needless to say, this is epic. (It may not even be that big of a deal, and I may have just not known how to do it before, but now it’s super-easy.)

We lost Frank Perez over the weekend, which is a real loss for the New Orleans queer community. Frank was dedicated to the history of queer New Orleans, and a big part of the scene here. I’ve read several of his histories and loved them all. He was also the driving force behind the LBGTQ+ historical archive in the Quarter, and his walking tours were also popular. We’ll miss you, Frank. I hate that we keep losing literary legends in this town…buy his books, please.

So, last night we started watching The Shards. I remember when the book came out, and it just seemed too meta…the author of Less Than Zero writes another book in the same setting, only this time it’s got the author writing a book about his friends while they are dealing with a serial killer situation. It’s a Ryan Murphy show (of course–stay away from Connor Storrie, Murphy!) so it’s glitzy and gorgeous, and there’s even nepo stunt casting (Cindy Crawford’s daughter! Richard Gere’s son! Cindy and Richard used to be married! Meta meta meta). The soundtrack was killer, of course, and hilariously, the standout set from the film Less Than Zero–the wall of televisions–appears in episode 2. It’s interesting enough, the acting is so-so, but we’ll keep watching, primarily because the main character is either bi or gay, but the men part is very deeply closeted. There’s also some poignance with that, too, but I can never get past how much the actor in the lead looks like Topher Grace, so I keep thinking Eric Forman with money.

I may order the book. I don’t know. I hated Less Than Zero, but loved The Rules of Attraction, and those are the only Ellis novels I’ve read. I can only take so much of the boredom and excesses of rich kids–I knew too many rich, spoiled brats in college who loved nothing so much as leaving behind messes for other people to clean up. (I suppose Ellis has been compared/contrasted to Fitzgerald?)

I did see some posts over the weekend talking about “straight actors who played gay early in their careers”, and they mentioned Dermot Mulroney…who I’d forgotten was in it; he was one of the first in the movie to die from the strange new disease. As heartbreaking as that movie is, it’s my favorite movie about the HIV/AIDS crisis. I started thinking about it more, and remembered how much better it was than Philadelphia (which I hated)…and thought, maybe I should rewatch them both and see if I still feel the same way about both? Needless to say, you can’t stream Longtime Companion anywhere, even to rent, but of course Philadelphia is available. Grrr.1

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Enjoy your Monday, and I hope it’s not as wacky and turned around as mine is turning out to be!

  1. Has anyone done a definitive critical analysis of HIV/AIDS books and movies? I’d love to read that. ↩︎

Love Makes the World Go Round

Sunday already? #madness. I am up early this morning after a good night’s sleep, and I feel pretty good. Yesterday wound up being one of those days where I didn’t do much of anything, and I am not one bit sorry about it, so there, LOL. I am not going to allow myself that luxury today, of course, and at least I should be able to get some reading and cleaning done. Or not. I had the television on, but don’t really remember a whole lot of yesterday and that’s also really fine. My time is my own, although I have some things starting to percolate. Another shared anthology is in the works (with Art Taylor and Donna Andrews for Jeffrey Marks’ Crippen & Landru Press), I have a short essay due by the end of the month, and of course, there’s always the book, the newsletter, and some short stories I want to write for upcoming submissions calls. I am trying to get back into the riding saddle again, but I have to be better about my time management, too. That’s the problem with a lot of free time; you can also wind up wasting time because you think you have plenty of it.

And you never do.

It was a bit gloomy when I got up this morning, but the sky has seemingly cleared. We may get some rain this afternoon, which would be nice and cooling. The temperatures have dropped to the low nineties/high eighties, which is more normal for summer in New Orleans, but I have no doubt we’ll get more blast-furnace heat by the end of the month; Labor Day weekend is always insanely hot and humid (which always made Southern Decadence more fun). But the summer is nearing its end (we won’t have cooler weather until October, but the humidity lessens some after Labor Day. A quick perusal of the weather channel and there is a disturbance out in the Atlantic, but no concerns for the moment. With my luck, it’ll probably come here and I’ll have to evacuate for my birthday. (It was my birthday the weekend before Katrina.) No sense borrowing trouble, as my mother used to say–which was funny, given she had generalized anxiety disorder and thus worried about everything,

Everything she could control, at any rate.

It’s kind of nice having my own dialed back to something manageable, seriously.

I am feeling both lazy and productive at the same time this morning. I need to eat something and get some more coffee, for one thing. I’ve got my journal right here with me, and I keep pausing to take notes. I also have The Last House on Needless Street here with me that I can dip into every once in a while, along with my reread of Celebrity. I have two newsletters I can get finished and out soon, and there are also a couple of others I am still working on. There’s always something for me to write, isn’t there? But one thing I definitely want to do this morning is organize the submission calls that I want to try to write something for as well–organizing is something I always enjoy, and it helps when you can look at everything in one single solitary place. I have finally accepted that my once sharp memory is now a thing of the past, and frequently am amazed at what I have forgotten.

I was thinking about this while reading another chapter of Needless Street, and about how wrong so many of my memories of Alabama have so often proven to be…this bothered me quite a bit, since I’ve visited the home county more times in the last four years than I have in the last forty. It bugged me mostly because I have written fiction set there in a fictionalized version based on memory, and if the memories are incorrect…(the reason is it–the book– reminds me of something similar I have been working on for the last decade or so; my own creepy house down the street in a small town and horrors from the past. This morning, the anvil dropped on my head. Fictional version are the keywords here; it’s based on, not an actual representation of the county. I swear to God, I wish I weren’t so literal and stubborn and oblivious, you know? Sometimes I wonder if I’d have been better off were I not that way; look at the difference dialing back the anxiety has made. Things to think about and consider, at any rate.

So Miss North Carolina was dethroned this week, so naturally the bitch tried to make it about religious persecution, so she could go the Riley Gaines route in conservative media…and then the pageant released the racist posts where she freely threw around the n word. Sit your racist ass down, skank, and have a folding chair. The “asshole whiner to conservative darling” grift is an entire thing, and always so sadly predictable. Your faith made you a racist piece of shit, did it? Have fun explaining that to your God before he sends you to hell, bitch. And how awesome is it that the title now passes on to a Black woman? Chef’s kiss, no notes–although to be honest, I wasn’t aware that beauty pageants, er scholarship contests, were still a thing.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great Sunday, y’all. I’ll be back in the morning.

I cannot believe I’ve never written a Scotty with a chase scene across balconies in the Quarter.

Lucky Star

Saturday morning and my car is away for the weekend. They are not only doing the body work needed but they are also going to replace the damaged hose and refill the coolant or whatever it is. Freon? Maybe, I don’t know, but it won’t be ready until Monday morning. So I’ll have to take a Lyft to the office Monday morning and pick up the car later in the day. It’s going to cost more than I had hoped but far less than I’d feared. But I am without a vehicle and I am fine with it. I mean, can you imagine having to evacuate without air conditioning? C’est insupportable!

Yesterday was lovely, actually. I did my work and the chores, hung out with Sparky, watched the news (we’re all doomed aren’t we?) because I was a few days behind while I worked, and got most of the chores done. Today I can have some things delivered, and there’s only a few chores left to do this weekend so I can spend it reading and writing, which is marvelous. I should probably get a newsletter out this weekend–I can do one about the book of soap opera essays I finished reading this past week. I also spent some time watching history documentaries–French history is ever so much more interesting than English, really; the curse of the Templars1 and the Tour de Nesle scandal alone makes it better–and read a few chapters of Italian history (this came from the curse of the Templars, whose story actually begins with the French king’s refusal to buckle under to the Pope. (I read a marvelous series of historical novels when I was a teenager called The Cursed Kings, by a French writer named Maurice Druon, about this period–which read more like Game of Thrones than the Wars of the Roses ever did.)

I’m not sure how I am going to spend today–probably reading and relaxing, with the possibility of doing some writing on the horizon. I slept in, and very deeply. Paul has his trainer today and then does cardio, so I’ll be here alone for most of the afternoon with Sparky, who will of course want to sleep in my lap the way he always does when it’s just us. (He was curled up in bed with me this morning while he waited for me to get up for his breakfast.) Cats really are wondrous creatures, aren’t they?

The weather has cooled down some–like turning the oven from 400 down to 375–but of course, we’re so beaten down by the heat by August that low nineties to mid eighties seems almost like fall. (I almost walked home from the body shop yesterday morning, but decided not to risk it. I was sweating at SEVEN THIRTY in the morning standing in the shade waiting for my driver!) I do need to order things for delivery, too, since I don’t have a vehicle for the weekend, which is again, progress. (I would have rented one for the weekend before, but…I can have things delivered and I don’t have to go anywhere.)

And on that note–sorry to be so dull–I’m heading into the spice mines. Happy Saturday, everyone!

Former pro wrestler Alex Wright was a very pretty man.
  1. Remember when The Da Vinci Code turned the Templars into a publishing fad? I do. ↩︎

Borderline

Friday morning and here we go.

You will be pleased to know that I am yet again certified for CPR, for the thirty-first time or so. This is more of an intense version–the clinic thing–and some things have changed, so I am glad I had to do it again this year. I’ve never had to use it–we have an emergency response team that responds to a code call–and some of the people in my department are on that team (I’ve seen them save multiple lives over the years) but it’s nice to know I can help if necessary.

I am about to get a second cup of coffee and start getting ready to take the car to the body shop. I’ll just grab a Lyft home. I have an on-line meeting at nine, and plenty of work to keep my busy this work at home Friday. It’s also supposed to rain this afternoon, and it’s under eighty degrees this morning–under eighty in New Orleans in August? Madness. I wasn’t tired after work yesterday, but didn’t do a whole lot when I got home other than pick up some things and catch up on the news. (Always a pleasure to do…) We did watch the season finale of The Vampire Lestat, which was different from the ending of the book but definitely ended on a cliff-hanger, which was an interesting choice. I also slept really well again, which was lovely. I am hoping for a good weekend again, but don’t really have any plans for the weekend other than reading, writing, some errands, and cleaning. I did finish reading Love in the Afternoon and Evening (more on that later), and hope to make some progress on The Last House on Needless Street as well.

Okay, the car has been dropped off at the body shop I use on the Earhart1, and I was sweating in buckets by the time the Lyft came–which was deliciously cold when I climbed into the back seat. Ah, this is what it’s supposed to feel like inside a car in the summer. The way New Orleanians forget every year how hot it gets in the summer needs to be studied–along with the comment “I don’t remember it getting this hot before” which is part of that protective amnesia I suppose. I said that on social media to a friend–who’d had dinner with someone earlier in the week who’d said the same thing. We do tend to talk about the weather here a lot, even if it’s just “whew, shore is hot this mornin’/afternoon/evenin’.” (Which is why Elmore Leonard’s writing advice to never start with the weather doesn’t work here. It affects everything.)

But “how to write” manuals are merely authors (or professors) telling others who are interested in writing and getting better. Nothing is tried or true in writing; one of the reason I turn off the spell/grammar check in word is because sometimes I want to use a sentence that may not be grammatically correct–and don’t even get me started on what that shit does to a stream-of-consciousness run-on sentence inside a character’s head. We don’t think in grammatically correct sentences and paragraphs; we also don’t speak that way. I certainly don’t, but that’s also me extrapolating my experience to everyone’s experience, which is a fallacy–yet something everyone does. A few years ago I read something and knit my brows together, thinking no gay would ever–and had to stop and remind myself that actually, some probably would. Our community, after all, is no freer from quislings than any other marginalized group. Sad, but a fact. That’s the mote in our collective eyes; the default that our own experience is the default and everyone thinks like we do….like how racists assume every other white person is also a bigot. (I’ve shocked a few, which is fun.)

And on that note, I am going to make some breakfast and get ready for my meeting. Have a lovely and great day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow.

The Rhode Island mansion that was a stand-in for Collinwood on Dark Shadows.
  1. I also asked for estimates for the damage acquired from other New Orleans drivers while parked. Thanks again, trash! ↩︎

Burning Up

Thursday morning and the last day in the office for me this week. But I slept amazingly well last night, and feel rested and refreshed this morning. Today is going to be hectic–I have back to back clients all morning, and then this afternoon I have to renew my CPR license, which will take the rest of the day. Heavy heaving sigh. I do think, though, that I can come straight home tonight and chill. That would be lovely, and I can get caught up on chores that I won’t have to do over the weekend. We can also finish The Vampire Lestat, which we are both loving, and some other new shows/seasons have dropped as well that I need to explore. I also want to finish reading my books this weekend. I read some more of Love in the Afternoon and Evening, which I am really enjoying (thanks again, Kristopher, for the recommendation), and also want to get more into the new fiction read as well as the reread.

Yesterday was a bit rough. I didn’t sleep well Tuesday night (I may have forgotten to take my night time pills), and so was either over-caffeinated or tired most of the day at work. It was just busy enough to keep me on my toes, but not so busy I was miserable. Oddly enough, I did catch a second wind later in the afternoon–which was a relief, as I had a dinner date–and came home and changed before heading uptown to Le Petit Grocery for dinner, which was superb. (I even allowed myself a dirty martini, but just one.) The company was even more superb, as it always is–I really do have the most amazing friends. I actually didn’t feel tired at dinner, and yes, of course I got tired when I got home, but…I slept amazing last night and feel fantastic this morning.\

Yesterday was a bit on the insane side, at least in the world of social media and author organizations. I only currently belong to ITW (no membership fee) and Sisters in Crime. (Sisters always has and always will have a special place in my heart because they’ve all been so great and supportive of me, personally and professionally.) I’ve not belonged to HWA in a long time, but not out of any sense of oh they are so awful or anything like that; I chaired World Horror Con for them here in New Orleans in whatever year that was (I want to say 2014, but it may have been 2015; who can keep track anymore?), which I actually enjoyed doing, working mostly with Rocky Wood and Lisa Morton–and I became very fond of them both. When I saw the first rumbles about a controversy involving their newsletter yesterday on-line, my first thought was literally Thank God I am not on any boards anymore and the second was oh no poor Lisa (before remembering she isn’t president anymore) and finally to I am SO glad I am not on any writer’s organization boards anymore. As for the op-ed, I know the person who wrote it, and of course, someone sent me a link so I could read it. It was…badly written and poorly argued. I saw her claim that the piece was theoretically about bullying, to which my response was clearly, straight white lady, you’ve never been bullied. No, dear, your piece was about bullying authors for using generative-AI–you know, the thing that stole my work for training purposes? No, bitch, I am never using any generative-AI in any way with my work because it is my work and they STOLE from me and almost every published author in this country. As for those writers who do use generative A.I.? I won’t bully you but I also will not read you. I lost interest in the controversy when it became apparent a lot of people were jumping on the bandwagon to slam HWA, which I wasn’t interested in. I don’t publicly bash writers’ orgs because I have sat on their boards before and I know all the concomitant difficulties–as well as battles–that happen behind the scenes. Whether I agree with the decisions they make is a different story, but I try not to critique because I also know I don’t have the whole story. HWA reacted to the backlash very quickly, removed the person from their board, and issued an apology. The bashing still went on, and yes, it can be frustrating when you’re on the outside, but I at least don’t need to know anything more, and I am not a member of HWA. I prefer to believe that everyone behind the scenes is doing the best they can at crisis management, and to give the benefit of the doubt.

But, for future reference, straight white people? Don’t use the word “gatekeepers” so blithely and freely. It’s a term for the exclusion of non-straight not-white people, and the predictable process those of us they chose to publish wind up going through–and it’s incredibly offensive to be accused of that simply because I don’t want to use, or read anything by, generative-AI. Fuck you for that cultural appropriation now and forever, even if it was unintentional, it was still incredibly offensive. Use your generative-AI if you want. But you don’t get to tell me how I can or should feel about it, unless you’re paying the rent. If not, shut the fuck up and take a folding chair.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Hope you have a lovely day, Constant Reader; I’ll be back tomorrow after I drop the car off.

L. A. Knight from WWE

I Know It

And here we are again on another midweek Wednesday. The weekend is nigh!

Yesterday was a rather nice day. I didn’t want to get up in the morning, of course–the bed was comfortable and Sparky was curled up with me, not turning into the HUNGRY MONSTER for a little while. But I got up, made my lunch for the rest of the week, and had a pretty nice morning before I left for the office. Work was mellow, I was able to get some paperwork and other things done around my appointments. Paul was doing some things in the Quarter, so he got a Lyft to my office and we went to Costco to pick up his glasses, which was relatively easy, given the nearness of the I-10 West on ramp by my office. Tonight I am having dinner with one of my favorite people in the world, and tomorrow I am going to have to run errands on the way home. I don’t think there’s a single night this week I went straight home from work? That’s not the norm, believe you me. I don’t think there’s a single night this week I went straight home from work? That’s not the norm, believe you me. But…I can also remember being so tired when I’d get off work that I couldn’t face stopping for gas on my way home. I wasn’t worn out, crabby or exhausted when I finally got home last night, and wasn’t horribly overheated, either. Having Paul in the car also makes it a better experience always, and we don’t get to ride in the car together that often anymore. I do rather miss the olden days when we worked about the same schedule and I would pick him up on the way home from the Marigny. I miss working in the Marigny, honestly, but I sure don’t miss coming home through the French Quarter, which apparently is a massive driving hazard because of all the Sewage and Water Board construction down there., and had a pretty nice morning before I left for the office.

I did have trouble sleeping last night, which is weird and hasn’t happened in a long time (unless I’m in a hotel somewhere), but I do feel okay this morning; Ill probably be tired this afternoon, but that’s okay. We’re not terribly busy today, either, which will be kind of nice–it won’t wear me out, and I do have things to do, but clients are what make the day go by faster, not paperwork or stocking or filing or quality assurance, which hardly makes the day fly by, ha ha. But it’s work that does need to be done, and yes some of it I put off as long as I can, and always swear at myself when I have to play catch up.

And now I think I may be over-caffeinated, which is definitely possible. I am trying not to eat as much today as I am having dinner tonight (and I usually am not hungry for dinner), so it’s a pattern change (and we all know how my body loves changes in routine); I’ll survive, of course. Just felt like whining for some reason.

So apparently Perez Hilton had a psychotic break on-line last night? Honestly, I’m kind of ambivalent about him. I don’t like not feeling sympathy for people in these situations–I am no stranger to brain chemistry issues–but he’s really a bottom-feeder with serious self-esteem issues. When I first became aware of the entity known as Perez Hilton, I was, predictably, horrified. I guess he felt we needed a crueler, more vicious on-line National Enquirer? We didn’t, but I never clicked on anything, read anything, or visited anything that would lead me to any site hosting him. I thought about killing him off in a book, so I could try to figure out who he is and what made him turn out the way he did. I know this is mean to say, but I kind of got the impression he was lonely and bitter, didn’t have many real friends, and that he’s always been that way. I’m sure he was bullied and picked on for being gay, like so many of us were, and that is something I can empathize with…but the vast majority of us also didn’t become hateful, vicious tabloid celebrity on-line gossip queens; Britney Spears alone was bad enough, but it wasn’t just her, either. It was literally anyone–and the younger and more successful the better. Why would you bully people when you’ve been bullied yourself? There’s something broken in him, which is sad, and for me, I can’t imagine waking up every morning and seeing myself in the mirror and thinking, who am I going to try to destroy today for clicks and money?

I read a lengthy interview with him a very long time ago, that I thought was interesting. He had lost weight (I’d never really known he was heavy; as I said, I avoided him as much as possible) and he really came across as desperate and sad; like he’s always blamed his loneliness on not being in “gay shape.” It doesn’t matter how pretty the packaging is, son, when the inside is soulless and empty. Maybe the problem isn’t external?1 The irony is sometime in the late aughts or early teens I found out what his real name was…and it sounded familiar. Sure enough, I plugged his name into my email browser and found a chain of emails from some year–I don’t remember which–but he used to apparently work for a gay glossy (I want to say Genre, but could be wrong) that I wrote fitness columns for (until they stopped paying me) and he, of all people, was my contact. As I looked through the emails, they were longer than correspondence between a contracted writer and an associate editor–mainly because he was so down on himself about how no one looked at him, and so forth, with me replying to him as though he were a training client of mine. We stopped when they stopped paying me–they still owe me for the last two columns I wrote for them–and I forgot all about him. I had no idea he became Perez Hilton.

And on that note, I’ll head into the spice mines. Have a lovely midweek, Constant Reader, and I will check back in again tomorrow.

Memorial for Sam Wilson, located in Lawnswood Cemetery, Leeds, UK. Sculpted by Edward Caldwell Spruce, it features bronze figures representing Faith, Hope, and Benevolence. The centerpiece is a winged figure holding a torch, with detailed scenes including a skull at its base
  1. I always default to “oh, it’s me.” I never cease to be amazed at how many people are incapable of taking honest looks at themselves…and yes, I know I can be delusional. “I’m perfect so it can’t be me” is a thought that has never run through my brain; I’m wired differently, I guess. ↩︎

Holiday

Here it is Tuesday morning, and yesterday wasn’t terrible, frankly; it definitely could have been worse. I felt a little spacy in the morning, and got a little bit tired in the afternoon, but nothing terrible. The day at work was productive and quiet. I slept well Sunday night, and was reluctant to get up yesterday morning. But neither Sparky nor my alarm would be denied, so I tumbled out of bed and stumbled to the kitchen to pour myself a cup of ambition. LOL, as if. More like fumbled down the stairs and turned on the Keurig to make a cup of coffee while Sparky spoke vehemently to me because I wasn’t moving fast enough for his liking–nothing new, when he wants something he wants it NOW. I slept well last night, and yet again didn’t want to get up again this morning, but I survived and got up. I ran a lot of errands on the way home last night–mail, pharmacy, made groceries–and was worn out, hot, and crabby by the time I got home. I did do the dishes and ran the dishwasher overnight, too. I’m trying to keep up better this week, so this weekend I’m not facing another mess–since I have car stuff to deal with this weekend, which means getting up early both Friday and Saturday. Yay! But at least next weekend is my birthday (already) and a lovely four day weekend, with Labor Day weekend not that far behind, either.

We watched House of the Dragon last night, with only one more episode left to go in this season as the show rushes to its final denouement. I”m enjoying the show a lot more, especially since I am realizing almost everyone in the cast will be dead by the series finale–and since so many of them are so completely unlikable, that will be fun. At this point, no one deserves to sit on the Iron Throne, frankly. This, to me, is more like the Wars of the Roses, which was theoretically the basis for Game of Thrones; when that conflict ended there were hardly any Plantagenets left alive as the family pruned the branches of its family tree. (I read in a history once that “the primary English crisis of the fifteenth century was Plantagenet fertility, while the sixteenth’s was , ironically, Tudor sterility.”) The entire thing is Viserys’ fault for not making Daemon his heir when he had no sons; no one would have argued with him then picking his own son over Daemon, as inheritance was to be expected to pass that way, in male primogeniture. Ah, folly in reality makes for great drama in fantasy.

I’m surprised dystopian fiction isn’t rising in popularity, actually.

I did work on the book a bit last night, which was absolutely lovely. Chapter Four is drawing closer and closer to its (first draft) finish, and I couldn’t be more pleased. Given all the life irritations and aggravations I’ve been dealing with lately, I am pleased to be back in the writing saddle again. I do enjoy creating, and even when it’s a struggle (which it is sometimes), there’s always a sense of, I don’t know, rightness whenever I’ve finished writing for the day. I was, to be honest, more than a little concerned that getting my anxiety disorder under control might take the drive to write away from me, and I have fallen off the old production schedule that I used to have, but it’s nice to rediscover my joy and to know the medication taking the edge off isn’t affecting my writing, now that I am in a place where I am writing again. I also have noticed the insecurity/Imposter Syndrome has also dried up almost completely (it still rears its ugly head every now and then), which is absolutely a godsend.

Alas, I’ve not cracked any of the three books I am currently reading since the weekend. Paul is coming by the office at the end of the workday so I can take him to get his new glasses at Costco. We’ll be heading against traffic–it’s a very easy drive to Costco from my office, thanks to I-10–so it won’t be too terrible. I am also choosing to see this weekend’s car stuff as a positive. I’ll have a/c again when it’s all over and done with, and I can read while I am waiting for the car when I’m at the dealership (not waiting at the body shop for it), and I will already be on the West Bank, so maybe I can run by Sam’s while I’m there and stop at Sonic for lunch. I can also get a lot done while I’m home waiting for the body shop to finish working on the car. So, over all, a positive, and I can sleep in on Sunday morning if need be.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and may you have plenty of tacos! See you tomorrow morning!

Are we really supposed to believe he has a beard and NO body hair? LOL.