My Way

Work at home Friday! Huzzah! Huzzah!

I received an invitation code the other day from a friend for Blue Sky, one of the new upstarts looking to replace the dumpster fire hellhole that is Twitter, and so yesterday I set up the account. I am also on Threads. On Blue Sky I am @scottynola, just like I am on Twitter, but on Threads I am @gregh121. I probably should have been consistent across the three platforms, but why would I start making things easier for people to find me now, twenty years into my career? But I posted on both Facebook and Twitter that I was there–and Twitter locked my account. Yes, the Muskrat is all about free speech, isn’t he?

Honestly. But Twitter becomes more and more of a shit-show with every passing day, and it’s not like it was ever a great place to be for long, anyway. I’d go on there, scroll through, have some fun and/or funny interactions with friends and acquaintances…and then inevitably it would turn horrific and I could feel the bile rising within myself as I read more and started to reply angrily…before deleting and closing the app. I wonder what future historians (if there are any future historians) will write and think about this era? What will they debate about, what will they think the truth was and how will it all wind up being reported? How harshly will we all be judged?

That’s a rather chilling thought on Morning 4, 432, 172 of an excessive heat advisory day here in New Orleans. I had thought and planned to go to the OMV today and get my real ID at long last, but I cannot find one item that I need…which Paul keeps so I won’t lose it and yet I was able to put my hands rather easily on all of the other things I need. The irony of this is not lost on me. I also am kind of glad of an excuse to not go outside today, in all honesty. It’s going to “feel like” up to 120 every day over the weekend, and I’d really rather not. It was miserable coming home from work yesterday, and I had to run a couple of errands as well. Dreadful. Just leaving my backpack in the car during those brief intervals at the stops I made was enough for my laptop to be hot to the touch when I got it inside. I think I have to make at least one grocery run this weekend, but I don’t know when I want to attempt it and go out into that. Paul’s coming home sometime on Saturday, and it would probably make the most sense to wait until he’s home, maybe? I don’t know, really. My brain is sort of on the fritz these days from the heat (yes, Greg, it’s recent and it’s the heat, whatever helps you get through it) but I had a great breakthrough last night on the WIP, and realized what absolutely is missing from the manuscript. So, hopefully after completing today’s homework duties (seriously, why haven’t I been calling it that all along instead of work-at-home? Embarrassment because it sounds like being a kid again? It’s work I do at home that’s more easily and efficiently done here than at the office, so homework), I’ll be able to dig into the book and get this important piece of the voice into the book. I also know where it’s heading in this first act, and I kind of have an idea for the middle for a change. That’s always satisfying; those a-ha moments are always so satisfying that it’s almost like having an orgasm; I want a cigarette immediately after, LOL.

But the finishing touches on the apartment are being done today, and I have to say having the walls back together on the first floor is amazing. I always forget how lovely this apartment is when, well, things are the way they are supposed to be. It’s an old house, and things go wrong and leaks occur and so on, and we generally tend to not complain about things…so they tend to not get the attention they need when we would prefer that to occur. But with the walls taken care of, with new plaster where it had damaged and then being painted over to match at last, it looks lovely in the living room and kitchen (I’d forgotten about that patch of white paint up in the corner by the ceiling; but it now matches) and now I no longer have any excuse for not cleaning and keeping the apartment up, which primarily was the defeat of “oh because of the damaged walls it will always look slovenly in here no matter what else I do” which turned into a multi-year slide. Had the walls been redone just before the shut down, I could have really used that time at home to clean the fuck out of this place. But the shutdown came with a malaise–depression, undoubtedly–and so nothing ever really got done.

I slept really well last night–woke up at five, again at six, and stayed in bed until seven–and now am enjoying my coffee and finishing this up. Sam the handyman has already come by to check in; I told him I’d be moving upstairs with my laptop and he has free rein on the downstairs. I need to start the cleaning upstairs anyway, and so if I am up there working when I take a break I can go clean something. There’s a television with Apple TV as well, so there’s literally no reason why I can’t get things done with music playing through the television. I’ve already started redoing the upstairs in bits and pieces. Tonight when I am finished with everything I think I will start watching this new reboot of The Real Housewives of New York. I’m kind of burning out on reality television, which has fascinated me for almost two solid decades now, so it would be nice to see a new, interesting take on these shows. (Hell, I even wrote a book around them.) I still have to get caught up on this season of Superman and Lois, but I am experiencing quite a bit of super-hero burnout lately, which is why I am enjoying the animated My Adventures with Superman so much–it’s optimistic and the doom and gloom and darkness so endlessly in supply for the DC Universe movies (thanks to The Dark Knight series) isn’t fun to watch.

And on that note, I am going to get a cup of coffee and head upstairs. Happy Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow. Or later–one never can be sure.