Author: gregh121

I am a writer and editor who lives in New Orleans.

Sexy Drag Queen

Today’s blatant self-promotion for Death Drop image is of one of my favorites from the world of Drag Race–Manila Luzon. I fell in love with her during her initial run on the show, and wanted her to win. (She didn’t, alas, but I also like Raja, who did win that season.)

When I was a personal trainer, I always asked new clients what their fitness goals were. Straight women inevitably wanted to lose an average of ten pounds or so; gay men always wanted to look like underwear models or Olympic athletes; and lesbians generally just wanted to be healthier. I tried to educate the women on the fallacy and dangers of “dieting”, and that the best thing to do was restructure and rethink how and what they ate and when. I used to always tell the gays, “can you afford a personal chef and nutritionist, and can you exercise three to four hours a day every day? Because they don’t look like their photos most of the time…they usually maintain their bodies regularly but go on ridiculously limited diets that aren’t healthy and also dehydrate themselves to look more cut for pictures. And it’s also their full time job to look like that. Now, let’s realistically talk about a plan that can make your body fit and toned in a healthy way that will be easier to maintain.”

Jem, my main character in Death Drop, is a professional hair stylist and make-up artist, and also has a good eye for fashion. His job is to make women, as he says, feel beautiful and confident, and as a gay man, he also can see the endless pressures from every direction that are put on women. Part of his issue with Marigny Mercereau, whose fashion show he is hired to work in the book, is that he hates the clothes she designs because the silhouettes are unattractive and they don’t flatter women’s bodies. Add to that the fact that the last time he worked for her, her check bounced, and yeah, she isn’t one of his favorite people. But so much is going on that night of the fashion show that Marigny’s clothes–and his dislike of her–aren’t in the forefront of his mind.

I mean, he does have to do drag for the first time that night–in front of a bunch of wealthy or upper middle class women he would love to have as glam clients. And Jem has stage fright.

That is one of the keys for me with Jem and the whole drag thing: he has stage fright, like I do. I’ve never really written about that much in my fiction–I know I’ve talked about it on here ad nauseum ad infinitum–but despite mining almost every experience I’ve ever had in my life into my fiction at some point, it’s kind of odd that I’ve never written about stage fright. I have it, bad. I am sure it’s a symptom of my anxiety–as everything is–but I have it, and I’ve always had it bad. When I was in plays in high school, it was torture. I liked being in the plays–I used to dream, as a kid, of being in show business, and yes, practiced award acceptance speeches in the mirror while clutching a shampoo bottle–but the actual performances? Absolutely not. I generally shake so much when on panels that I usually try not to use my hands when I talk–which I always do–because I don’t want anyone to see that I’m literally trembling in terror; I am also usually sweating a lot and my heart is racing and there’s a massive adrenaline rush…panels aren’t as bad as moderating one is; but now that I know it’s anxiety I try to handle it. Before I moderated that panel at Bouchercon this past year, I walked around a lot before the panel to burn off the adrenaline and try to get my heart rate down to something passing as normal. Also knowing it was based in anxiety gave me a handle on it; when I know what is going on I can try to cope with it better than what I did before–which was just grit my teeth and get through it.

Jem didn’t have stage fright while walking in the fashion show–and he also knew it was because of the lighting and it being after dark, he couldn’t really see the people in the audience. He knew they were there, but as long as he couldn’t see them it didn’t phase him. His fears of performing, of getting on stage, is going to be something he is going to have to work on in future books–of which I am hoping there will be at least three, if not more. He probably won’t have to deal with it in the second book either–because while he has graduated from drag school and performed in the graduation show, that was for friends and family and not the general public–because the second book takes place at a national drag pageant…which is being protested by a hideous hate group called Moms4Freedom…which I am having a lot of fun with, rest assured.

And on that note, I will bring this to a close–there will be more blatant self-promotion to come!

Jambalaya

Louisiana is beautiful.

The state’s nickname is “sportsmen’s paradise,” because all of the macho male outdoor sports–hunting, boating, fishing–are available here in abundance. We’re also called the Pelican State (most prevalent) and several other nicknames, not all of which are complimentary.

Louisiana has always been a conservative state, despite the existence of New Orleans. Originally French then Spanish before becoming American, Louisiana also was a part of the Confederacy and had an economy based on enslavement. We weren’t that far removed from David Duke’s gubernatorial bid (which came all too close to succeeding), and I remember Paul had gone on site visits with his boss at the Arts Council south of the city, and came home saying, completely in disbelief, that “people had yard signs saying ‘this is Duke country’–and me replying, sadly, “in the South they don’t bother to hide the racism–they see it as a positive.” But you cannot really go anywhere in Louisiana without being awed by the natural beauty on display here. I love Madisonville, and the Tchefuncte River area. It’s always a lovely drive to take 90 east when you head north (yes, I am aware I am saying you take an east-west highway to go north; welcome to New Orleans), and head out through the Venetian Isles area and drive along that narrow strip of land separating the lakes, crossing the Rigolets bridge and heading into Slidell.

A while ago, I was following a Twitter conversation about Burt Reynolds movies from the 1970s. Mind you, when I was living in Kansas our movie options were limited. There was a drive-in movie theater on the way from our little town Americus to the county seat of Emporia, and there was a small twin cinema on Commercial Street. The summer before my senior year Smokey and the Bandit opened on a Friday, and the following Friday Star Wars opened in the other theater. Both movies ran for about three months….so I saw them both repeatedly as there was very little else to do. The 1970’s were an interesting time for depictions of rural Southern sheriffs; Jackie Gleason hamming it up and going completely over the top. This was also the same time period that gave us corrupt politician Boss Hogg and the inept sheriff and deputies he controlled. These were always played for laughs, but the thing is–there really wasn’t anything funny about these types of characters in real life. Political and police corruption have always gone hand-in-hand in the Southern states; the police merely existing to enforce and enable the existing power structure. That Twitter conversation, along with reading Ethan Brown’s Murder on the Bayou and the various true crime documentaries about the Jeff Davis 8, put me in mind of writing about that kind of corruption. But I also kept wondering, but is this still true in the South? Do these kind of corrupt power structures still exist in the South? Would this read like a period piece?

And then the Murtaugh scandal broke.

Guess what? It IS still like this in the rural South. Thanks, Murtaughs!

I already had an idea for the next Scotty, and was pulling it all together, using a relatively minor political scandal here locally as the starting point for the story–which involved a conservative politician getting involved with a teenaged boy who worked at the food court at a mall, mostly buying him presents–clothes, underwear, swimsuits–and having the kid send him pictures wearing it. The age of consent in Louisiana is seventeen, and the kid was over seventeen, but while still being an icky thing, it wasn’t illegal–and they never did anything beyond that. It was mostly a harmless flirtation, until the kid, who was gay, realized that the nice man buying him gifts was actually a hardcore far right family values politician, so he went public. I still needed a murder, but I thought it would be simple to come up with one–the politician would have every reason in the world to kill to protect his secret, and he had his parish sheriff’s department to help commit and/or cover up the crime.

I did borrow two of the Murtaugh crimes for the book, but as starting points more than anything else, and came up with my own theories of said crimes for my own story–I wasn’t writing true crime, after all, and I wasn’t interested in proving the guilt of the Murtaughs. What I was interested in was exploring the decline and fall of a politically powerful family that had controlled a parish in Louisiana for well over a hundred years, almost like an absolute monarchy with primogeniture. I had also originally started the story with the kid coming to Scotty and Frank (through Scotty’s old buddy and former workout partner, David, who now teaches at NOCCA) because he gets a text from an unknown number which contains one of the pictures he has sent his older male friend (that he doesn’t know is a family values politician), and is worried about his own future if the information comes out. I wrote an entire draft of this story, but it didn’t work and I didn’t care for it…which was when it clicked into place: use two of the Murtaugh crimes to start with, and built it out from there. I decided that the kid at the mall wasn’t the original target of the politician, and that the original target was killed in a hit-and-run accident the year before; I also used the boat crash, turning it from a boat hitting a bridge to a pick-up truck hitting a bridge and pitching the passengers in the back into the bayou.

I also liked the teenager/older man dynamic, because it had played out with Taylor in the previous book–and Scotty had his own past with an older man when he was a teenager, which I was finally able to circle back around to.

I also invented the parish–surprisingly enough, there is no St. Jeanne d’Arc Parish in Louisiana–but it’s based loosely on what are known as the bayou and river parishes (Terrebone, Lafourche, St. Charles, St. John the Baptist). I already had a fictional parish on that side of the river (Redemption), but I decided Redemption wouldn’t work for this book, so I made it a neighboring parish.

American Heartbeat

Well, I didn’t get my blatant self-promotion done yesterday, so I will have to work extra hard today to make sure it does get done; cannot go two days without any, after all. I do feel tired this morning, and I am going into the office tomorrow. I have appointments for the surgery all morning on Monday, so I am going to take the day off–which means staying at the office after the department meeting to get all the things done for the next week that I would ordinarily do on Monday. I keep hoping the dentist will call about my dentures; it would be so awesome if I could get them on Friday, but surely they will come in by next week. I know things have slowed down with deliveries to New Orleans thanks to the visibility issues we’re having down here in the mornings. There’s a swamp fire in the East (which is why the whole city smells like burning rubber), and that mixes in with the heavy fog and visibility is relatively non-existent. Yesterday morning every bridge into New Orleans was closed except for the causeway, and there were some bad accidents before the bridges were closed. I-55 still hasn’t recovered from that insane massive pile-up in the same conditions last week, and I think it still closed southbound. As you cannot get into New Orleans from anywhere else in the state (other than Metairie and Kenner) without having to cross a bridge, you can see how closing all the bridges1 could cause delays in deliveries to the city–which is also probably why the grocery stores all look so picked over all the time.

I did manage to do some chores last night when I got home–finished a load of laundry and started another; emptied the dishwasher and reloaded it to run again, with another load waiting to go–and I made groceries on Carrollton before heading uptown to get the mail. My new copy of Chris Wiltz’ The Last Madam2 arrived yesterday, along with shaving accoutrement that I’d ordered, which was lovely. I think I am probably going to come straight home from work today. I’ve picked up the mail every day this week so far, it can wait again until Saturday when I take books to donate to the library sale. I really need to get back to work on the book and some of the other writing I am trying to get done before the surgery knocks me out for a while. I don’t know how much writing I am going to be able to do during the three-week post-operative hard cast to keep the arm immobile period, but in a worst case scenario, I should be able to sit in my easy chair and read and watch movies, right?

I watched a documentary last night on Youtube about how Egypt survived the Bronze Age Collapse (which is a period which really interests me–all the civilizations crumbled around the same time but we don’t really know why), and I also watched another episode of Moonlighting, and it just so happened that my all-time favorite episode was on deck, “Twas the Episode Before Christmas”–which also is one of my favorite series Christmas episodes of all time. This was the episode where the show fully committed to breaking the fourth wall regularly (they’d flirted with it before, with the occasional joke about the run time of the show or the viewers), but this is the episode where Miss DiPesto finds a baby in her apartment right before Christmas, and from thus the mystery was sprung. I also absolutely loved that the three FBI agents looking for the baby were all named King (hence the Three Kings looking for the baby at Christmas), and other little clever touches like that. It’s also an incredibly well-written episode, anchored by a truly beautiful and sensitive performance by Allyce Beasley as Miss DiPesto–who was robbed of an Emmy for this episode. This also, along with getting the new Donna Andrews Christmas mystery (Let It Crow! Let It Crow! Let It Crow!) and David Valdes’ new y/a romance Finding My Elf, had me thinking about Christmas again, and my weird bipolar feelings about the holiday, and also had me thinking about how little I’ve written about Christmas in my vast array of work; as far as I can remember there’s one short story (“The Snow Globe”) and one book (Royal Street Reveillon), but that’s really it. I’ve written other Christmas short stories, but have never shown them to anyone or wrote additional drafts, because they were gushingly sentimental, and I despise cheap sentiment. (Oh yes, years ago I edited an anthology of gay Christmas stories, Upon a Midnight Clear, which has been out of print for at least fifteen years, if not more.) I am going to try to read more Christmas-set books this year during the holiday season, much as I read horror the entire month of Halloween.

I’m also thinking I should write more about Christmas, and another Christmas book isn’t a bad idea, either.

I just wish I could get my mind to focus on something, you know? But I suspect that has to do with the looming surgery. This weekend, LSU plays Florida on Saturday night, and I am not sure I’ll watch much else–I’ll have the games on in the background but fully intend to get shit done around the house, and read, and write. I am not going to be able to do much around the house for at least three weeks, which has me a little concerned about the laundry–but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. One nice thing about football season is that once LSU is out of contention for anything, I don’t really have to pay much attention to anything else other than them for the rest of the season. I do love football, but not enough at this point to justify wasting an entire day watching games.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I am going to try to get some more blatant self-promotion out today, too.

  1. Ironically, I talked about how you always have to cross water to get into or out of New Orleans in Mississippi River Mischief; and here we are. ↩︎
  2. More research into gay prostitution and the history of sex work here. ↩︎

Lady Marmalade

He met Marmalade down in old New Or-leenz, strutting her stuff on the street, she said “hello, hey Joe, you want to give it a go?“

That classic song by Labelle came out while I was in high school, during the early to mid-1970’s, and there was a lot of prurient young teenager thrill in knowing that the French lyrics translated to “do you wanna have sex with me tonight?” But the song–essentially about a hooker in New Orleans and a man’s experience with her–was an introduction to another side of New Orleans–one you wouldn’t find in the World Book Encyclopedia.

It was very important to me, for a variety of reasons, to make Scotty someone who embraced his sexual orientation and sexuality. I wanted to write someone who LOVED having sex, loved beautiful men, and felt no Puritan-American based shame about enjoying sex. Those kinds of characters were few and far between in gay fiction, let alone in gay crime fiction. After writing the typical miserable cynical bitter gay man with Chanse, I didn’t want to do that again. I wanted Scotty was to be the obverse of Chanse in everything, except their mutual love of New Orleans.

(This was, in part, in response to being briefly dropped by Alyson when I signed the Scotty series with Kensington, being told “two mystery series set in New Orleans would be too alike.” I took that personally, as an insult to my talent, ambition, creativity, and abilities…and I think I proved my point. Once Murder in the Rue Dauphine and Bourbon Street Blues were released–and Rue Dauphine sold super well for them and was nominated for a Lammy–Alyson changed their minds. I’m still mad at myself for not asking for more money.)

But while Scotty was highly sexually active, he never got paid for it. He also never did porn–although I did consider that at one point as an option; I thought a murder mystery built around a porn shoot would be interesting and kind of fun. And of course, in this book he mentions that he and the guys have recorded themselves having sex, and have sexted each other.

Scotty always preferred to keep his status amateur–but he was a go-go boy (stripper, exotic dancer, dick dancer, whatever you prefer to call the guys who dance for dollars in gay bars wearing various kinds of male undergarments), and he was certainly someone who was not averse to having a sexual encounter with a handsome stranger. (There’s a joke about this in Mississippi River Mischief where Frank comments after they’ve met someone, “I’ve been with you for almost twenty years. If you think I can’t tell by now that you’ve recognized someone but you’re not sure from where, which means you’ve probably slept with them, think again”–a paraphrase, but you get the gist; Scotty is often running into men who look vaguely familiar, and that usually does mean he slept with them a long time ago.)

New Orleans, despite it’s rather prim-and-proper high society set (on the surface, anyway), with the Pickwick Club and the Boston Club and the mysterious Mystick Krewes of Rex and Comus and so on, has always been a city of loose morals and freewheeling attitudes towards sex and sexuality. We had a zone where prostitution was legal for three decades or so (Storyville) and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were several bordellos operating within the city limits as we speak. There was the arrest of the Canal Street madam; and of course local author Chris Wiltz wrote The Last Madam, a biography of notorious Norma Wallace–the last well-known madam in the city. (Which I need to reread…) Bourbon Street was known for its strippers and vice for decades; there are still strip clubs on the infamous strip running from Canal downtown to Esplanade–and there are usually men in bikinis or something equally scanty on the bars of the gay clubs down down around the St. Ann/Bourbon queer nexus of the Quarter. When I was starting my deep dive into New Orleans/Quarter history, I wasn’t surprised to find out there were “stag” bars down along the riverfront along the levee; and if someone at one of the fancy houses in Storyville had a predilection for the Greek vice that needed scratching, the madam would send one of her bouncers down there to find someone willing to turn a trick, with a fair share going to the house, of course.

I think that’s fascinating, really; and something I want to explore in a story. I’ve started the story (it’s “The Blues Before Dawn” which I’ve mentioned from time to time) but can’t quite nail down the crime part of it. The set-up is great, though, he typed modestly.

I didn’t intend for Scotty to wind up in what is now known as a throuple–a three way couple, or a relationship of three people–on purpose. I wanted to create the dynamic of two men being interested in him at the same time, and have some fun with that in the first book. I absolutely did, and when I sent Colin away at the end of the first one, that was deliberate. I couldn’t decide who Scotty should wind up with, and I wanted Frank to be really who he logically should end up with–but this bad boy with a mysterious background who was so hot and sexy? I couldn’t NOT bring him back, and so I decided I had three books to wrap up the romantic dilemma. I wasn’t certain what the backstory of the dilemma would be, or how it would turn out, or how it would go–but when I was writing Jackson Square Jazz I found the perfect place and perfect way to bring Colin back. That book ended with them deciding to try a throuple to see how it works out. It was going pretty well until Mardi Gras Mambo–and I tried really hard with that book to not end the romantic story the way it ended in that book…and finally decided, since the series was actually turning out to be popular, that I would finish it by the end of the fourth book.

I’ve also not talked about it in the books or on this blog at all, but….they also have an open relationship. (Someone asked me about this at some point after the last book came out.) Nothing else would work for Scotty–he may not take advantage of the opportunities that pop up now the way he used to, but that’s because he has the freedom to make that choice. If he was forbidden from outside sexual relationships, he would cheat–and he doesn’t want to do that because that’s hurtful and wrong. He never wants to hurt Frank or Colin–but both of them are also away from New Orleans for long periods of time; Colin off doing his international agent stuff, while Frank is on the wrestling tour doing shows and promo events; so they are on their own a lot and temptation is always there–after all, all three of them are gorgeous–so while it is unspoken on the page, it’s an open throuple. And usually, Scotty finds outside sex to be kind of dull, unemotional, and not nearly as much fun as it is with one or both of the guys. That’s a character development arc. I also don’t show Scotty going out to clubs or waking up with hangovers with a stranger in his bed anymore, either. He does still go out–he loves dancing–but the gay bar scene has changed since he was younger and he doesn’t find it to be nearly as much fun as he used to.

Though he won’t say no to a hit of Ecstasy during Carnival or Decadence.

How subtle are the changes in Scotty as he has grown, aged and evolved? I think they are miniscule, but a revisit of the first two books in the series has shown a lot of change and growth over the years for him. He is definitely not that same flighty twenty-nine year old who booked a gig dancing at Southern Decadence all those years ago to make rent and wound up kidnapped by neo-Nazis deep in a swamp–I think he’s a little less flighty and a lot more responsible than he used to be…though he’s not as responsible as most people his age. Turning him into a property owner in the Quarter from a renter–and letting Millie and Velma ride off into the sunset in Florida as retirees–has also made him grow up, as now taking care of the property is his responsibility.

I will always be fond of my Scotty, though, and hope to keep writing him till I can no longer type into a computer or speak into a word-to-text app.

my neighborhood is so beautiful at night, isn’t it?

It’s Raining Again

Wednesday and it’s Pay-the-Bills Day again, hurray.

Last night’s sleep wasn’t as good as previous nights, but I do feel awake and rested this morning so that’s a good thing. I am also incredibly excited about my wagon, which i know is weird. I had a straight male co-worker look at it*, and sure enough, he was able to get the wheels attached properly. I stopped on my way home from the office to get the mail and thought, hey I had packages and my hands will be full, so let me use the wagon and it was marvelous. Clearly, I should have bought a wagon a long time ago–and it’s the right size to fit along the narrow walkway alongside the house. It’s actually going to make life so much easier for me now it’s almost scary, and it makes the most sense to actually keep it in the car–it’s out of the way, will always be there when I need it, and if I need it for anything else, well, the car is parked usually out in front of the house so it would be easy to get to. I am most pleased with the wagon, I have to say.

I’m also trying–not always successfully–to stay in control over my anxiety. I have all my pre-surgery appointments on Monday, so that’s when I am going to find out what the recovery is going to look like. I am taking unpaid leave from work (I don’t have near enough sick or vacation time to cover the time I need to be out, so here we are) which is going to be an issue I will deal with when it rolls around; but I do have the process started and I can get the documentation I need for Admin from those visits and turn everything in the following day when I go back to the office.

I wasn’t tired when I got home yesterday, but Tug was feeling lonely and needy, so I had to go give him a lap to sleep in for a while, and after watching another episode of Moonlighting and a documentary about Greek fire and the Byzantine Imperial Navy, I’d lost all motivation and was feeling tired and sleepy. I did nothing for the rest of the evening–nothing. I did go to bed around nine-thirty, and of course woke up just before five again this morning, but I think the body is beginning to adjust somewhat to the time change.

I got an unexpected royalty check (small, but I’ll take it gladly) in the mail yesterday along with my copy of David Valdes’ new Finding My Elf, which looks absolutely adorable, and I can’t wait to give it a read after the surgery. I am two books behind on my Donna Andrews reading, I need to read the new Lou Berney and Angie Kim novels, and there are any number of others I want to get to. I am assuming after the drugged haze of painkillers and so forth dies down afterwards, I’ll have lots of down time to read. I am going to have a rigid cast to keep the arm immobile for at least three weeks, and I am assuming that means limited options for doing things other than reading. I imagine typing one-handed is going to be incredibly frustrating, but it can be done. And during the drug fogs of those early post-surgery days, I can just reread things–like histories or true crime favorites or some Stephen King favorites (it’s been a hot minute since I reread Firestarter, for one, and ‘salem’s Lot and The Stand are always fun to revisit), or some of the other great favorites lying around the house.

I was also very happy to see that Ohio added abortion rights protections to the state Constitution as well as legalizing recreational marijuana–well done, Ohio!–and that Kentucky reelected their Democratic governor. There were some right-wing wins, but the great Blue Wave momentum from 2020 has continued, as well as the reaction to the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe–congratulations, Federalist Society, your hand-picked Supreme Court majority has effectively destroyed the conservative movement’s electability for a generation. The Democrats needs to hit hard on abortion and the illegitimate Supreme Court–Mitch McConnell’s legacy, by the way, have fun being hated for the rest of American history, douchebag–going forward, and frankly, they need to put Howard Dean–who engineered the historic gains of the 2008 election cycle–back in fucking charge of the DNC.

I always said that abortion rights should be put on the ballot. This is the wedge issue that trumps (couldn’t resist) the Right’s religious zealotry and transphobia and racism.

But of course, they won’t learn the lesson that they’re unpopular and so are their policies and values–they’ll just see this in a paternal way: “clearly the voting public can’t be trusted, so we need to install authoritarianism for their own good.“

Yes, this is the same party that thinks they’ve successfully branded themselves as “true American patriots.” Fucking garbage is what they are.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back to check on you with more blatant self-promotion later.

*ah, stereotypes. Alas, we have a lack of butch lesbians in the department now, so had to make do with a straight guy. C’est la vie.

Born Naked

RuPaul likes to say we’re all born naked–everything else is just drag, and she isn’t wrong here.

Everything we wear is a form of drag. We always try to dress properly for whatever occasion, but yes–there’s work drag and formal drag and casual drag and gym drag and sports drag and around-the-house drag and pretty much any way you want to look at clothing…it’s all kind of a costume, really. And those costumes also depend on the time period.

I used to always think that I had no fashion sense–straight women and other gay men have often been astounded at how little I care about clothes or fashion or style. I have slight color-blindness, too–it’s hard for me to differentiate between darker shades; the darkest shades of blue and purple and brown and gray and green all look black to me. I also have some difficulty determining whether colors actually go together or not–which is why when it comes to formal/dressier clothing I tend to stick to black, white and red; I have so many red dress shirts, Constant Reader, you have no idea–so as I got older, I tend to go with what is easiest and less anxiety-inducing for me.

Of course, I also worked at an airport and had to wear a uniform for over two years: airline work drag. And after years of being a personal trainer, where all I wore was workout clothes or sweats, so yeah–my fashion sense has always been untrained and severely lacking for the most part.

Louis XIV, the Sun King–but those tights! That wig! Those shoes! More like La Reine Soleil, am I right?

I also always used to deplore the fact that men’s clothes gradually became so incredibly boring from the heydays of Beau Brummel-type male fashion icons. Look at the above painting of Louis XIV. Now imagine a man wearing that outfit to an awards show or a film premiere. Even our own Founding Fathers wore tights, powder, wigs, and heeled shoes.

But somehow, those clothing items became feminized and gender swapped–of course, women in the past also wore heeled shoes, wigs, powder and tights beneath their skirts and bustles and hoops. But even in the 1930’s and 1940’s, men’s clothes were far more stylish–trench-coats and linen pants, fedoras and other hats, spats and Oxford shoes, argyle socks. I hated the “traditional” styles of dress for men that developed in the post-war period. and the utter rejection of those same styles in the 60s and 70s. Men’s clothing began to evolve a bit more during this period–and some serious fashion faux-pas were prevalent during the last decades of the century.

As I said the other day (and as so many others have pointed out), men have always dressed as women for one reason or another that had nothing to do with gender expression or identity for years. The Sun King’s gay younger brother (he also had a gay bastard son by Louise de la Valliere; homosexuality was rampant at the Sun King’s court) Philippe duc d’Orleans (whose son was the namesake for New Orleans) had many male lovers and often dressed as a woman for appearances at court. I’ve always wanted to write about Philippe, who has always fascinated me–the young gay bastard son of Louis XIV, who died young, was Louis duc de Valentinois; I’ve also had some minor interest in writing about him as well, or just gay life at Versailles in general.

There is a long-standing drag tradition in New Orleans as well. The Red Dress Run, for example, may not be full drag as we know it, but it’s essentially all about men in red dresses for charity.

One of the things I really enjoy about the modern young generation is they don’t subscribe to the antiquated rules of fashion for men and women. I love seeing young actors and celebrities showing up at red carpet events in daring outfits instead of that tired old tux look. Yes, men look dashing in tuxedos; I’ve always wanted to go full tuxedo with hat, cane, tails and gloves–but again, not the ordinary or expected.

I wore a kilt twice when I went to the Edgars, and wore it again at Bouchercon in Albany for our Real Housewives of Bouchercon panel. I loved wearing it–skirts are sooooo much more comfortable than pants–and it was definitely a fashion risk; people who didn’t know me but saw me wearing it undoubtedly thought ah, that one must be gay. I love the way the Musketeers dressed in The Three Musketeers–I think the seventeenth century was probably my favorite era for men’s clothes; I also love a pirate look from the early eighteenth as well.

One thing I definitely need to explore more with Jem is not only his sense of fashion for his clients, but for himself–both in and out of drag. Those are critical decisions for a queen–because while a particular look or style for a queen can evolve over the years, it’s very unusual for them to do something radically different than their usual; again, it probably has to do with ease more than anything else; it’s much easier to fall back on a regular look and color palette than to reinvent yourself every time or to come up with something new every time. I do think I am going to have Jem do the Madonna constant reinvention thing–mainly because it’s more interesting that way for me–because it is part of who he is as a person; Jem thinks he’s boring but he’s actually quite adventurous. Jem has very little confidence in Death Drop, which is easy for me to write because I know how that feels. One of the goals of the series is to show him develop self-confidence and self-assurance and becoming more comfortable with himself, and part of that is going to come from performing in drag and another part from actually solving crimes…which makes him start believing in himself more.

And that is always fun to write–character growth and development.

Pressure

Tuesday and we survived Monday, did we not? Huzzah for everyone for making it through Monday.

I slept really well Sunday night and felt rested and good yesterday. I am all caught up now on day-job activities, and also started the process to take my medical leave of absence from work. Two weeks from today is the surgery, and I am already so ready to be over it and through the rehabilitative process, you have no idea, Constant Reader. Anticipation is the worst for someone with anxiety–are you tired of me bringing that up yet? I guess it’s going to take me a little while to get used to knowing precisely what is the issue in my head, after thinking I was normal (or as close to it as I could be) for most of my life and thinking that everyone’s brains functioned this way. I wasn’t terribly exhausted after work, but I ran two errands on my way home–one in Midcity, the other in Uptown–and it was pitch dark when I got home. I never get used to that, no matter how long the time change is for; it always feels later than it is and like the entire day has been wasted. Tug wanted attention so I went to my chair so he could be a kitty donut, and I watched Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, before Paul came down and we started watching Karen Pirie, the BBC series based on a Val McDermid novel–and it’s a two time-line story! I do love a dual time-line story, and this one is rather well done, too. I was dead in my chair by nine, but did my best to stay up until at least nine-thirty before going to bed. (I sound positively tragic, don’t I?) I don’t remember having this much difficulty in adjusting to the time shift, but then I have a lot more going on this year than I usually do at this time.

It is nice that it’s light out when I go to work in the mornings, though–and this morning, with it already bright outside as the sun rises over the West Bank (yes, only in New Orleans does the sun rise over the west bank–is it any wonder that we are so off-balance and not like the rest of the country here?) makes me feel a bit more awake and alert than I usually do. It does seem like all I am doing these days is waiting–waiting for the dentist to call to let me know I can pick up my teeth; waiting for the surgery; waiting for pretty much any and everything you can think of, really. I have never been known for my patience, either. I just have to get used to the idea that things are out of my control (something that never sits well with me) and I need to simply ride it out for a bit.

I did get sort of caught up on my emails yesterday–I still have a little way to go before I have an empty inbox, but the possibility is there at last, hallelujah–so progress was made, and considering how much I was avoiding answering emails for over a week, that’s definitely a positive sign and takeaway. I do have a phone appointment with my primary care physician this morning, which is cool–it seems like all I’ve been doing since I got back from Bouchercon is go to medical or dental appointments–I really do like my new primary care physician and am looking forward to working with her more in the future. It really makes a difference when you feel connected to your doctor, rather than always feeling like a bother when you go in to see them. (It also just occurred to me that those feelings may entirely be due to my anxiety; I didn’t really know my previous doctor and never really felt like I got much of a chance to get to know him, despite seeing him for nearly three years at least, if not more) I also feel a lot better this morning than I have in a long time, like the depression and anxiety and worry has finally lifted and my brain feels like its wired properly this morning. I also don’t feel tired the way I usually do on Tuesday mornings. We’ll see how long this lasts, anyway, won’t we?

I am highly amused that, feeling like I should be more handy and adventurous, I went to Lowe’s to get a wagon and blinds for my primary kitchen window–and also thought about buying either a six or eight feet ladder that I could keep outside and only bring in when I need to reach up to clean the ceiling fans. I even looked at the ladders while I was there, thinking oh I can just have it delivered so I don’t have to worry about getting it into the car and went about making my other purchases. Of course, I couldn’t get the wagon assembled and I grabbed the wrong size blinds…which means I have to go back at some point and exchange it for the right ones. (I brought the wagon to the office to see if someone –a straight guy–could figure out what I am doing wrong with attaching the wheels; I don’t trust myself that it’s defective and needs to be returned along with the blinds.) I also started laughing at myself last night–I won’t be able to use such a ladder, or move it, until after I’ve recovered from the surgery, so what’s the point of getting one now? I will make a note to get one once I am all recovered–and leaving it outside will make it easier to access for cleaning the windows, which I have also slacked off on doing lately (I don’t think I’ve done the windows at all since last year, which is disgraceful).

I also feel more focused this morning than I have in a very long time, too, which is terrific. I am going to ride this wave as long as it lasts today, and hopefully, it’s not just a one-day thing. But having had a lot of experience with my brain’s faulty wiring, I am also very well aware that this could easily just be a one-day bounce-back and tomorrow I will be down in the pit of despair again. Ah, the delightful rollercoaster of faulty brain wiring.

And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Be warned, there’s more blatant self-promotion coming your way relatively soon.

Queen of New Orleans

I am always delighted when people think I capture New Orleans perfectly in my work.

I love New Orleans, and while I, along with everyone else who lives here, reserve the right to be irritated, exasperated, and annoyed with the city–God help you if you talk shit about the city if you don’t live here (“bitch, you live in Metairie”) in front of people who do.

Trust me, it won’t end well.

I fell in love with New Orleans officially when I came here to visit for my thirty-third birthday, which was a lot of fun and probably one of the best birthday weekends of my life, if not the best one pre-Paul (we had yet to meet at that time). I do sometimes wonder when I think back to visiting, and then living, in New Orleans in the 1990’s, if there’s nostalgia involved in my memories. That New Orleans no longer exists; the flood waters from the levee failure after Hurricane Katrina ended that time with a very firm line of demarcation so that everything was thus defined ever after as before and after. There were also the post-flood years in which the city was being rebuilt and rescaled and rethought and repopulated, but it’s never been the same as it was before the flood and it never will go back to that. There was a definite sense before that New Orleans was stuck in time and nothing was going to change anything–something drastic was needed to solve all the problems. It was thought at the time that the one positive was that maybe New Orleans would rise from the ashes like the mythological phoenix; a hard reboot that could fix everything.

It didn’t. Some of the old problems remained, some of them were eliminated, and new ones arose. The streets still collapse into potholes and constantly need repair; the sidewalks still tilt and get broken up by ground subsidence and live oak tree roots. There’s always something for the locals to complain about when it comes to life and living here in New Orleans. When Paul and I first moved here all those years ago, we had no idea what we were in for–but the nice thing was it was the first place I’d ever lived where I felt like I chose it; Mom and Dad chose where I lived for most of my life. I chose Tampa over Houston, but it wasn’t from an overwhelming decision that I desperately wanted to live in Florida (I didn’t; I moved for my job). But New Orleans–New Orleans was the first place I ever visited that I wanted to live. It’s really the only place I’ve ever wanted to live, or had an opinion about, or actually felt anything for; I am a New Orleanian, and a Louisianan by extension.

It’s really beautiful here, and I thought so when we moved into this crumbling neighborhood in a decaying city whose best days looked to be past already. In the daylight the city’s scars and wounds and damage is clear; but in the night, with shadows dancing and the light limited, it was still so gorgeous it can steal your breath away–and great apartments were enormous, high-ceilinged, hardwood floored, and cheap.

1996 was a whole different world; Bill Clinton was about to be reelected, gay sex was still a crime, and “don’t ask don’t tell” didn’t solve anything; it just made the realities of being a queer in military service even more difficult. There was still the remains of the Camp Street on-ramp to the Crescent City Connection on the neutral ground on the other side of Martin Luther King Drive; the Coliseum Theater was still there–closed and shuttered, but still existing, and there was this incredibly beautiful old house that was a ruined, crumbling wreck that looked haunted and absolutely fascinated me; I wish I’d taken pictures of it. (It has obviously been renovated.) Paul and I moved into the Lower Garden District right before it’s renaissance and gentrification. We lived on the Square; the park was just outside our front door and down the walk and across the street. Coliseum Square was dark at night then; all the streetlights in the park were either shot out or burned out, and the fountains were dry and rusted. The beautiful, graceful live oaks were there, of course, resting some of their heavy branches on the grass. All the big gorgeous houses around the park were derelict and run down, gorgeous ruins waiting for a buyer with money and a love for old houses. A gay couple bought one of them and spent the next year renovating it; it’s still a stunningly beautiful house. One by one those old houses were bought up and remade–and now Jennifer Coolidge lives in a house fronting the park (she sometimes comes to our corner at St. Charles for parades during Carnival).

I always think of Scotty as kind of a gay personification of New Orleans; the two are always entwined in my brain. Uninhibited, unashamed, unabashed, and always up for a good time–you could say that easily about them both. It’s really funny that back when I created him I didn’t think there was enough story in him to be a series–and here we are, on the eve of the ninth being released. Obviously, people responded to him in the way that I wanted them to; they’ve embraced his weirdness and eccentricity, and that of New Orleans as well. I couldn’t create a character like Scotty who lived anywhere else; anywhere else he wouldn’t work, would be judged harshly and looked down on by people for his hedonistic attempts to suck all the juice out of life as he can.

And I’ll probably still be writing him when I die–which, hopefully, won’t be for a long time yet.

Jealous of My Boogie

Research is always important for a writer, always.

I will generally spend years doing research for books before I start writing them; my scattershot approach to research usually goes something like hey this sounds interesting I should look it up which then takes me down wormholes and I’ll become obsessed with something, I’ll come up with a story idea that I can use the research for, and then it may sit in the files for years, occasionally striking my fancy sometime when I come across something else that might fit in with that, and so on. A lot of my research never makes it onto the pages of my books, either–I could have written chapters on glass-making and the Murano style of Venetian glass in The Orion Mask, but finally decided that, while I thought it was all interesting–Phyllis A. Whitney used to use her books to educate her readers about the area she was writing about, which I loved–but it definitely bogged down the story because there was no way I could figure out to tie the glassmaking to the modern day story.

That was very disappointing, I don’t mind saying.

Likewise, I didn’t have as much time to research drag the way I should have before I started writing Death Drop. Ordinarily, I would have wanted to actually talk to the local who runs the drag school; I would have talked to any number of queens about performing, how they got into it in the first place; and there are so many aspects of drag culture and so many levels and layers to it that it was impossible for me to get the research done and write the book at the same time. Ideally, I would have liked to have actually paid someone–preferably my former supervisor, who went to the drag school and now works full-time in drag as Debbie with a D (check out her Instagram, seriously)–to do the full drag on me–wig, make-up, pads, dress and shoes. (I kind of still need to do this, so I know how it feels; I relied on memories of high school plays for the make-up and wearing a Minuteman costume with real buckled and heeled shoes for walking in heels; I didn’t care for that one bit and have nothing but the deepest sympathies for women or anyone who has to wear any kind of heel on a daily basis. I can still feel how sore my calves were the next day.)

Me with my supervisor’s pageant crown

That was part of the reason I made the book an origin story for Jem and “Joan Crawfish,” the drag name he is christened with at the last minute as he sent down the runway at the Designs by Marigny fashion show. I don’t know drag lingo or slang–outside of whatever I’ve picked up from watching RuPaul‘s Drag Race and having co-workers who do drag and the occasional drag show I’ve caught over the years–and so neither does Jem/Joan. And the second book–set in Florida at the Miss Queer America pageant–will include some of that, as it will have to as he’s already finished the drag school he was considering entering at the end of Death Drop.

It doesn’t hurt that my current supervisor does pageants and was even Miss Gay Mississippi USofA; so I have a good source of information that I see at the office every day, which is….kind of cool, actually.

I do feel pressure to drag it up a bit more in this second book (You Gone, Girl) than I did in the first, but the pageant itself makes for a lot of drama and comedy, and that’s not even taking into consideration all the protests and bomb threats and things and other shenanigans that the evil witches from Moms4Freedom are throwing at the pageant.

And I am going to have some serious fucking fun with those Moms4Freedom bitches, believe you me.

Southern Cross

Monday and back to the office.

The time change is always so weird to me, really. I always understood it had something to do with kids and not catching the bus in the dark in the mornings or something like that, but if they’re all walking home after school in the dark, how does that make sense? I always appreciate the extra hour, but always resent giving it back (or having it taken away?) in the spring. I kept finding clocks I hadn’t reset in the apartment (after thinking, wow, time has flown–wait a minute), and I did do some things. I did manage to make it to the West Bank, but it was really a wasted trip; Sundays are clearly not the day to do shopping over there as almost every place was out of almost everything. I got my wagon but couldn’t get the wheels to lock in place (I am so not handy) and I also got the wrong size blinds–so I get to go back. Hurray. But I did get some things for lunch this week, and I made ravioli last night for dinner for something different (I even managed to eat some bread softened with red gravy), which was nice. I watched the end of the Saints game–which they tried very hard to lose–and then another episode of Moonlighting. I found a much later and much more revised version of one of the novellas, “Fireflies”–which needs a lot of work, but is a very good idea and the kernel of a terrific novellas is there, if I can stick the landing–and also was put in mind of Chlorine yet again by coming across Matt Baume’s Tab Hunter1 documentary on Youtube (another great job, Matt!)–and I had a germ of an idea for how a part of the plot would work–another piece fell into place, as it were, and so I scribbled it down in my journal (huzzah for journals!) to wait for the day and time I can get back to work on it and give it my full attention.

I realized yesterday–once again astonishing myself with my own obtuseness–that part of what’s going on with me lately–the moodiness, the surliness, the self-destructive inability to get anything done, and the anxiety that comes with all of the above–has everything to do with my coming surgery. The compartmentalization doesn’t always work, you see, when something is creating a lot of anxiety for me. I have very little idea of what to expect and what it’s going to be like–or how restricted I am going to be as far as movement and so forth or for how long. I know I shouldn’t consult Dr. Google, but in lieu of any other information that I can recall, what else is there to do? And Dr. Google was right when I looked up the information on the injury when it was finally correctly diagnosed, after all. So I can look at about three weeks out of the office on medical leave, and then possibly some limited mobility after that. It sounds like if I am going to be able to type at all it will be one-handed, which is limiting, so I am hoping that if I am not drugged out to the gills I can spend time getting caught up on my reading as well as doing a lot of editing work on my own stuff. I am not going to be able to lift or carry things, which is going to make the whole grocery situation interesting for a couple of weeks, but I guess I can have things delivered. Probably the best way to compartmentalize all of the concern and anxiety about the surgery would be to start planning and preparing so I can be as ready as I can, right? It’s been a year, really. I suppose my end of the year round-up blog post on New Year’s Day will be a bit morose and melancholy.

I think one tends to be a bit more morose and melancholy as one gets older.

I also started watching A Haunting in Venice and while it was shot beautifully and had a great cast–it didn’t really hold my interest. The Agatha Christie novel it’s loosely based on–and I do mean loosely–is not one of the more better known ones; Halloween Party was a perfectly adequate Christie novel but it wasn’t anything spectacular. I do remember it, and I do have a hardcover book club edition of it, too. It probably belonged to my grandmother, or else I picked it up at a second hand store or a flea market or somewhere like that. I took a break about halfway through and then went back…and kind of dozed a bit through the second half. It’s a shame; I watched because I had Venice on the brain after rereading “Festival of the Redeemer” Saturday afternoon, and rethinking how to rewrite and revise and improve it. But it was beautifully shot, and made me wish I could live, even if for a brief month or so, in Venice for a while. I did go back and finish it–but I found it disappointing. Beautifully shot, yes, and Venice is always beautiful on film, but such a waste of so much remarkable talent.

I went to bed early–it was a struggle staying up until ten, which felt like eleven, and slept really well. I feel rested enough to actually face the day and potentially be productive–crazy, I know–but I generally feel well rested on Monday; it’s the rest of the week when my ass starts dragging. I also have to keep pushing forward on some things, too–progress must always be made, even when I don’t feel like making progress on anything. (Watching Tug get used to having his nails trimmed and not being able to use thing to climb–me, in particular–has been rather cute, but then again he is world’s most adorable kitten.) I didn’t read very much this weekend, either, more’s the pity; but I am thinking I’ll be doing a lot of reading once the surgery has taken place and I am no longer living on pain medications–maybe I can even read while on painkillers; I know they are going to give me oxycontin or some version or derivative of it, which makes watching all those movies and documentaries and mini-series based on the crimes of the Sackler family against the American public perhaps not as smart as it seemed at the time; I am terrified of becoming addicted to a pain medication–but that’s also an excellent time to wean myself off the Xanax, too.2

And on that note I am heading into the spice mines for the morning. Have a great Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back to check in on you again later with undoubtedly more blatant self-promotion.

  1. I actually met Tab Hunter, which is something that amazes me to this very day; I actually met him and his husband several times. How cool is my life, really? ↩︎
  2. While I’ve been taking it to control mood swings all these years, it’s really not something you’re supposed to take on a daily basis but rather as needed; now that I know it’s anxiety I can treat it appropriately. Most of my medications are now wrong, and need to be changed. ↩︎