Category: Alabama

Gotta Travel On

The Ides of April and Tax Day, huzzah. I’ve filed for an extension for mine because I just couldn’t deal with it before, which is kind of childish and more than a little immature; the key word here is avoidance. But I plan to get it all finished this week, God willing and the creek don’t rise. I am going into the office a little later than I usually do, because I have to swing by the Cat Practice to get Sparky’s food on the way to the office. It’s an Admin Day, so not a big deal for me to not be there as early as usual.

I feel rested and good this morning, which is a very pleasant change and surprise. I did go to bed a little early last night, but I spent most of the day writing in my journal, watching documentaries, and later on in the evening we watched more episodes of The Gentlemen. I also finally looked up the name of the star, Theo James, because it was bothering me that I recognized him and couldn’t place him. I am liking it a lot more than I would have thought, frankly; not being a big fan of producer/showrunner Guy Ritchie, but it’s actually quite fun. I also went down some rabbit holes of research yesterday, which is always a lot of fun for me. I also started reading Paul Tremblay’s The Pallbearer’s Club, which I had a little trouble getting into at first, but I remembered having this issue with A Head Full of Ghosts, too–like the latter, he’s playing with form and style and point of view in the former, which is a bit hard to get used to it, so it’s slow going (for me) at first, but as always, there’s such depth and compassion in his writing it’s easy to see why his career has taken off. I’ll try to read some more of it when I get home from work tonight, after I do the day’s writing. I am definitely planning on writing every day now, even if it’s just a little something. I made lots of notes yesterday in my journal, too, which was very cool.

I decided yesterday, when watching a lengthy documentary of LSU football highlights (I was doing this around chores, listening to the documentary while Sparky and Paul slept on the couch) that one of the problems I’ve been facing with writing lately, something I’ve talked about on here a lot, is how I’ve not really been able to focus all of my creative energies on anything that I am writing, but have any number of things in-progress that my mind keeps attention-deficiting between, skittering around between projects and ideas without really landing effectively on anything for long enough to get very far. Yesterday I decided, as I grabbed the journal and hit play on the documentary that I was going to free-form take notes and scribble out ideas as they came to me, regardless of what they were about or for, even if they were entirely new project notes. I did a lot of scribbling, and most of it focused on one project, which really needs to get done by the end of the year, as well as some others I was a bit surprised still were there and fresh in my mind. I also know now that if I rewrite at least three of these short stories drafts that I have on hand, that collection will be complete.

I also found the voice for a new project idea I’ve had in the front of my mind for a while, primarily because we watched those ‘troubled teen cure’ documentaries at the end of the previous week. I had an idea for one set in Kansas, based on a foster home where the kids went to my high school. I didn’t think much of it when I was in high school–other than how much harder those kids had it than the rest of us–and sometime in the years since high school I thought, I could write a crime novel around that story even though it would entirely be fictional and the real place was simply a starting point for my fictionalization. The title came to me this weekend–The Crooked Y–and so that’s definitely moving up the list of “what to write next.”

As you can tell, writing is becoming more important to me and it feels good for my mind to be creating again, even in this current ADHD way, which is so much better than the dry well experience I’ve been having since…well, since Mom died, really. 2023 was a lot of personal trauma; and relentless from January on, which makes it not surprising, I suppose, that my brain has been fallow for so long.

And on that note, I am going to start getting ready to head into the spice mines for the day. Have a great Monday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later.

Lonely Teardrops

Well, good morning, Constant Reader, and I do hope everything is going well for you on this lovely Saturday. I slept deeply and well (and a little late), and feel pretty good this sunny morning. My primary priority for this weekend is to get my taxes finished and to my accountant (we’ve already filed an extension because I couldn’t get my shit together last weekend), do some writing and cleaning and run some errands, and relax as much as I can. Last night after getting everything done that needed doing, I ordered us a pizza for U Pizza (formerly Slice) on St. Charles Avenue, and we watched some more documentaries about child abuse reform schools for “troubled” teens, The Program. It’s very chilling to see how these kids were treated both in these schools and in those camps (Hell Camp), and I imagine we are also going to have to, at some point, watch the documentary about conversion therapy camps, too. Watching these has given me an idea for another Kansas book (I already had the idea, but this was excellent research for it), which made me think about some other things about my writing: what inspires it, and what issues do I take on in my work? I think part of the issues I am having with really getting back into the writing (where I’m writing three thousand words or more every day) is because I am not addressing issues I am passionate about, things I write about and learn more about and should be more concerned about.

And now that uneducated white supremacists are now in power in Louisiana, I’m going to have a lot of issues here to take up. So far, Governor Landry is unchecked in his attempts to turn Louisiana into an authoritarian state, and I doubt very seriously any Louisiana politician is going to oppose his horrific agenda for Louisiana–he’s actually worse than Jindal ever dared to be, and he was a monster who left the state in shambles. It’s kind of scary knowing our governor is someone who wouldn’t agree to be Klanmaster because the position wasn’t racist and homophobic enough for him. As much as I love New Orleans, retiring out of state is beginning to look like the best option.

Sigh. But there won’t be anywhere safe for us if we don’t win the November elections.

I did manage to finish two pending blog entries yesterday on top of the daily entry, and so that made me feel a bit better. I’ll probably spend some time this weekend cleaning out the drafts–getting rid of the duplicate ones, or trying to combine them all into one and getting rid of the others. I’d love to finish my Saltburn essay, too, but that may not be in the cards this weekend, either. I’m going to go run errands later this morning, and I also have some more cleaning and filing and organizing to do around here as well. Like always. But I really do feel like I made some great progress on all of this lately, but the floors need to be done, and the rugs need to be reorganized. I also want to spend some time with Michael Koryta’s The Cypress House, which I should be able to finish reading this morning…which will lead to me having to pick out something else to read next. I do have some good choices–piles and piles of great potential reads–and I did go through them a bit last night while making some choices. I should also read some more short stories while I am at it; the Short Story Project has definitely dropped off, and I’d also like to revise one of my in-progress stories this weekend, too, but we’ll see how that goes.

I’ve also been doing some casual research for The Summer of Lost Boys, which I am hoping to start and finish by the end of the year. All I am doing is listening to the Top 100 hits of the year for (so far) 1973 and 1974, and that in and of itself is bringing back memories. I do think this is going to be a really good book and I’m getting kind of amped to write it. I know immersing myself into the history of current events as well as popular culture in those years will trigger my memories, not all of them good, of course, but definitely its helping me to remember what it was like to be a tween in those years, going through puberty and truly realizing how different I was from everyone else I knew as well as getting ghosted, bullied and mocked for being different, which I didn’t really understand other than knowing the truth–that the horrible things they were saying was right, and that made it even more shameful and awful. The only thing that kept me going sometimes was dreaming of being a writer and reading books, escaping from an existence I neither asked for nor wanted.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I’ll be back later without a doubt, and so hang in there until I wind up posting again. May your Saturday be marvelous, and thanks for stopping by yet again this morning!

Under the Boardwalk

I hadn’t been sure that I would keep writing young adult novels after I revised, rewrote and published the first three (Sorceress, Sleeping Angel, and Sara) I didn’t know if it was a direction I wanted to keep going in. I knew I wanted to do stand-alones–always have wanted to do stand-alones–and I also like writing about teenagers and young adults.

You may remember (doubtful) me talking about a horror novel a while ago that I started writing in the 1980’s called The Enchantress that I only got about three or four chapters into before abandoning (because I didn’t know where to go next with it; and the first chapter I specifically remember rereading at some point in the decades since and shuddering in horror at how badly it was written), but one of the places in the book really stuck in my head–an old family-owned hotel called Mermaid Inn, which sat on the shores of Tuscadega Bay (which was my stand-in for Choctawhatchee Bay–my grandparents retired to a house on that bay and I’d always wanted to write about that area; still do–it’s where “Cold Beer No Flies” was set). After shelving The Enchantress (which I do think about from time to time, and wonder if I should revisit the idea) I kept thinking, you should write a book and call it Mermaid Inn because that is a great title!

I made a folder for it, wrote a few sketchy notes, and then… it sat in my files for a very long time.

If you will remember, I had originally planned to write an entire series of interconnected young adult novels, a la the Fear Street series by R. L. Stine, and one of the varied locations they would be spread out over would be Tuscadega, Florida, in the panhandle on a fictional bay. That was part of the note I scribbled for the folder–set this in the panhandle of Florida, and somehow connect it to the fictional Alabama county you’re going to write about someday.

I decided to write Mermaid Inn sometime after Hurricane Katrina, when I discovered yet again my own ignorance of geography. I was beginning to realize that the panhandle wasn’t the right setting for this book and decided to set it on the Alabama Gulf Coast, which made me realize I had absolutely no clue about that part of Alabama’s geography. I’d just never really given it much thought, to be honest; I knew Mobile was on the bay, and I knew that when you drive on I-10 through Mobile you have to take a tunnel below the Mobile River. I just had always assumed there was nothing south of Mobile in Alabama–I mean, it’s ON the water–and figured that those lower prongs of Alabama that reach down along the sides of the bay were uninhabitable wetlands. I discovered this to not be the case when visiting friends for the first time who lived in Alabama south of Mobile. They told me to take an exit off I-10 and drive south, which I didn’t think was possible.

Turns out it was–and I realized…this will work for my book! So I filed it away and forgot about it again.

I don’t remember precisely why I decided to write Mermaid Inn, but I did, and set in a small town on the prongs, south of Mobile; my friend Carolyn Haines helped me with some background and I know she told me some stories about closeted society men in Mobile and their hijinks and I thought, I could use this for the book and I think that may have been the impetus? And then I created my character, Ricky Hackworth, from Corinth, Alabama–po’ white trash who needs a swimming scholarship to attend the University of Alabama. (Sidebar: alert readers will recognize that Beau’s last name in Bury Me in Shadows–and at one point in the story he mentions he’s only the second Hackworth to go to college; “besides my cousin who got a swimming scholarship.”)

Bold Strokes didn’t like the title, and for perhaps maybe the fourth or fifth time in my career my original/working title didn’t make it on the cover. They recommended Dark Tide, which I really liked because it gave the sense of the book’s mood and tone and voice…and darkness.

The engine of my pickup truck made a weird coughing noise just as I came around a curve in the highway on the Alabama Gulf Coast and I saw Mermaid Inn for the first time.

My heart sank.

That’s not good, I thought, gritting my teeth. I looked down at the control panel. None of the dummy lights had come on. I still had about a half tank of gas. I switched off the air conditioning and the stereo. I turned into the long sloping parking lot of the Inn, pulling into the first parking spot. I listened to the engine. Nothing odd. It was now running smooth like it had the entire drive down. I shut the car off and kept listening. There was nothing but the tick of the engine as it started cooling.

Maybe I just imagined it.

Hope springs eternal.

The last thing I needed was to spend money on getting the stupid old truck fixed. Maybe it just needed a tune-up. I couldn’t remember the last time it had one.

Dad gave me the truck when I turned sixteen. It had been his work truck since before i was born–it was two years older than I was. He’d finally broken down and bought himself a new one. This old one was dependable and had almost two hundred thousand miles on it. Dad had taken good care of it. He’d babied it, gotten an oil change every three thousand miles without fail, and I could count on one hand the number of times it had been in the shop to be repaired.

It still had the original transmission.

It might not have been the nicest or prettiest car in my high school parking lot, but it got me where I needed to go and got good gas mileage. Since I was saving every cent I could for college, that was a lot more important than horsepower and cosmetics and a loud stereo that rattled your back teeth. The swimming scholarship I’d accepted from the University of Alabama wasn’t going to remotely cover anything close to the lowest estimate of what my expenses might be, but it was the best offer I’d gotten.

And I was grateful to have it. If they hadn’t offered, I wouldn’t be going at all.

Swimming was my ticket out of Corinth, Alabama.

That opening scene!

Dark Tide was probably my most hard-boiled young adult title published to that point. It was a dark story, and Ricky was poor–an economic condition I’d touched on with Sara, and something I generally try to avoid when writing. I’ve been poor, and I know how it feels; I don’t like remembering those days of checkbook mistakes and bounced checks and not having enough money from one paycheck to another. Ricky has taken a summer job as the lifeguard at Mermaid Inn in Latona, Alabama (Latona is another name for Daphne, which is actually a town on the prongs below Mobile), to save money to pay for college expenses his swimming scholarship to the University of Alabama wasn’t going to cover, and the water being there meant he could continue training. Once he arrives and is shown to his room on the uppermost floor of the building and meets the owner’s daughter, he learns that his predecessor from the summer before had simply disappeared–and young teenaged boys disappear with an alarming regularity over the past few years. He starts asking questions, mostly out of curiosity, and also starts having horrible dreams, about vicious mermaids beneath the water, and there are a lot of stories about killer mermaids from the days of the indigenous people and the Spanish. I wrote some terrific scenes in this book that I was really proud of–one particular dream sequence was especially chilling–and I was also trying something with the rhythm of the words, which I hadn’t done in a very long time, and I think it worked.

Writing Dark Tide was important to me because this was the book that reminded me again that I was writing stand-alones to help keep the series books fresher, more creative, and less paint by the numbers, too.

Lonely Street

It’s been interesting watching the right backpedal as hard as they are currently doing in order to convince voters that they aren’t that kind of Pro-Lifer, when we know damned well exactly what they will do about abortion if given the chance. The way the right managed to convince everyone in the decades after Roe was decided that pro-choice was actually an unpopular position, and that the American people wanted either an outright ban or severe limitations. It has always infuriated me because I knew it wasn’t true; most Americans would never say it out loud–the true success of the right-wing noise machine right there; be loud and scream a lot and you’ll convince people (particularly the media, which is not only disgusting, but was also decades of journalistic malpractice visited upon the public, who trusted them) that you are a majority position. (NARRATOR VOICE: If you have to outscream and outshout people about a position, your position is probably not popular). South Dakota had a ballot initiative three times to ban abortion outright in order to let the voters decide. These initiatives weren’t covered much by the media, and you can be forgiven for not knowing this happened…but in 2004 when Turdblossom and W made gay marriage a scare tactic to drive conservative voters, that ballot initiative was trounced in South Dakota soundly. It was once again trounced in 2006, but the big story that year was Republicans losing Congress and our first female speaker. I kept pointing this out to people, and have long said that Democratic candidates and politicians should work to put abortion on every ballot so the people could decide, instead of these lunatics that keep getting put in state legislatures and governor’s mansions.

And pro-life is a very toxic and unpopular political position, as politicians and judges in Virginia, Kansas, Alabama, and other red states have since discovered. NONE of their policies are popular and liked by the general population; and I love that the Democrats are finally fighting as hard and as dirty as the Lying Evangelicals. They need to be exposed as traitors, charlatans, and cosplay Christians. This latest ruling in Arizona? The justices need to be taken out and horsewhipped if they like 1860 laws so fucking much.

And don’t think they won’t come for birth control and divorce. You can never believe they are ever finished with their grasp for power and control–as long as they are the ones in control. If they aren’t. they’ll scream about how their “freedoms” are being oppressed.

They. Will. Never. Stop.

Yesterday was a wild day here in New Orleans. I knew we were going to have terrible weather, and it was pretty bad. We were under a tornado watch until one or two, and of course we were having flooding rain all day, and the streets were flooded all over the city (on the other hand, it gave me the opening line for the next Scotty: It was August and the streets were flooding.). We didn’t have a lot of clients come in for testing (obviously); when I got to work, I got out of my car just as the rain started, and I was pretty much soaked through by the time I got into the building (my socks were damp all day, which was super-annoying). But I got caught up on my work stuff, our site visit was cancelled but I am glad I got everything caught up–and I am hoping now to be able to stay on top of everything instead of being lazy and letting things slide. I was very tired when I got home–the city had pretty much shut down, to the point that I could actually take the highway home at 4:30, and got home in five minutes–and managed to finish a load of laundry and do some dishes. We watched the Hell Camp documentary about how the kids sent there were tortured and abused, some being seriously injured and some even died, and parents are still sending their kids to these places! We then watched a German documentary series about a gay serial killer in Berlin (a German serial killer? Who’d have thunk it?), which was interesting and creepy and more than a little scary (I’ve always held that gay men are the perfect victims for serial killers, because they are used to going home with strangers or bringing one home), but it was fun to watch while wrapped in a blanket and listening to the rain. Not quite the enormous pleasure it is to read in that situation (I am really looking forward to getting back to The Cypress House this weekend.)

And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. May you have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I will probably be back here possibly later.

Alvin’s Harmonica

Here we are on another Wednesday Pay the Bills Day, and are we feeling bright and chipper this morning? No, not really, but we’re getting closer to the weekend and that’s always a good thing.

We’re also in a “severe weather alert” and there’s currently a tornado warning until one pm. That should make driving to work exciting, should it not? Sigh. The weather is supposed to be bad all day–high winds and heavy rains, on top of the tornado warning–which also means an odd day at work. Will people try to come in to keep their appointments in inclement weather like this? You never know, and so the entire day is going to be weird like that. We’re also having a site visit from our chief funders for my program today, so I also need to be on my toes. We’re ready for the visit; I got everything caught up that I needed to for this, and so it’s just a matter of making sure everything today runs as smoothly as possible. Heavy sigh. And after some more checking, I see that City Hall is closed today for the weather, they’re allowing parking on the neutral ground because of potential flooding, and yeah, not looking forward to getting there or driving home later today. But at least if there is a tornado, our office building is probably the safest place for me to be during a tornado anyway.

I was very tired when I got home from work yesterday, and so didn’t get very much done. We watched the new Netflix movie Scoop, about the notorious BBC interview with Prince Andrew after the whole Epstein thing went public that basically ended him as an active royal–his titles and responsibilities taken away and forced to live quietly for the rest of his life out of the spotlight and public eye. It was interesting, and had some terrific performances. After that I got up to do chores before bed, so I got the dishes put away and did several loads of laundry before going to bed. Tonight I will do another load of dishes and then the kitchen will be in relatively good shape.

It’s already started raining, and I can tell it’s going to be one of those “oh the city is definitely going to flood” storms, and it’s not going to let up much all day. Huzzah. The pumps all seem to be working, though, which is always a plus. It’s the kind of day where my preference would be to sit in my chair wrapped up in a blanket while Sparky sleeps in my lap and I read more of The Cypress House–it’s a wonderful day for being snug and warm with a book while you listen to the rain come down and the occasional thunder.

Ah, well, maybe it’ll rain this weekend and I can do that.

A lot has happened in the world and culture over the last week or so, and I’ve unfortunately not really remembered to make commentary on some of it. Congratulations to the South Carolina Gamecocks and Coach Dawn Staley on a fantastic season and a national title! I was also incredibly impressed with Coach Staley’s response to the gotcha question about transwomen in sport before the game–which she also called out and didn’t care about any controversy or backlash to her opinion–and that’s the kind of ally-ship we need and deserve. She is a class act in every way, and what she has built at South Carolina is the kind of dynasty the Tennessee women used to enjoy under Pat Summitt, and that is saying a lot.

And almost every day I almost fly into a rage at the right-wing’s attempts to legislate women’s healthcare and bodily autonomy, with the latest outrage courtesy of the Arizona Supreme Court, overruling a recent fifteen-week ban legislated and putting a draconian law from the OLD WEST DAYS OF 1860 TO GO INTO EFFECT. Those fucks are a disgrace to American jurisprudence, and I love that the Attorney General flat out said “we’re not enforcing it, fuck those pieces of shit.” And don’t think for a minute that the evangelicals won’t come for birth control (they’ve already abolished IVF in Alabama) and same sex marriage. You know, I hate to break it to these blasphemous idolators (Trumpism is idolatry, sorry not sorry, have fun in Hell: thou shalt have no other gods before Me). If you want an idea of the country and culture they want, look no further than Puritan Massachusetts. Remember The Scarlet Letter? That’s the kind of shit they want to bring back. You can never ever give a religious extremist an inch….because when you do, they want everything. (And Catholics, don’t think you aren’t on their list after they outlaw and get rid of everyone else. Right after the Jews, they’ll come for you because they always have to have an enemy. The Right’s entire purpose is scapegoating and blaming minorities for everything. So when things continue to suck after they’ve gotten rid of the “problem minorities,” they’ll have to find another group to blame. Remember how the Soviet Union collapsed and the Right didn’t have another enemy in place? Saddam Hussein stepped into that vacuum happily.)

Okay, I am going to brave the elements and go to work. Have a lovely Wednesday, and I will chat with you again maybe later, Constant Reader.

I Need Your Love Tonight

Monday and back to the office blog this morning, and I didn’t want to get up this morning. But now that I am, I feel fine and ready to get on with this day. I did not have the productive weekend that I wanted to have, but I got rest and that’s really the most important part of the weekend for me now. I did get some reading done–I am loving The Cypress House, more on that later–and I did assemble the new barbecue grill (which took much longer than it needed to and was much more complicated than it needed to be, but it’s done and I most pleased with myself for not only doing it, but redoing it when I had done something wrong, as opposed to just leaving it and making it work); it was cool outside but incredibly muggy, so I got overheated and super sweaty while doing it, with the end result that I was really tired when it was finished…and my appetite was gone. Ah, well, at least it’s done and ready for next weekend, right?

We started watching the final season of Young Royals yesterday, and it’s interesting. What’s even more interesting is seeing how the main characters have grown and changed in real life; the prince is now taller than Simon, which he didn’t used to be. They also look more mature in the face, if that makes sense? But watching them kissing now doesn’t feel as uncomfortable as it did in earlier seasons, so they’ve clearly gotten older in real life. I don’t know the ages of the actors and I don’t know if I care enough to go look and see how old they are, but one of the things that always makes me squirm a bit in shows with age appropriate (or appearing) actors is you feel a bit icky watching them be intimate with each other…which is one of the reasons why most teens in film and television are played by actors in their twenties. This, however, gives us all–especially those of us not around teenagers very often–the wrong idea about how adult teenagers look, especially when they’re sexually active…so it’s shocking when you run into actual teenagers and you see how young they really do look. This is something I’ve been wrapping my mind around since Heartstopper, and trying to write about. Maybe now I can finish those thoughts all the way through? Stranger things have happened…

The eclipse is today, and we won’t get full coverage of the sun here in New Orleans, but about 85%, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t going to be weird. I love that people think the eclipse is going to be the rapture (if only), or an omen/sign from God…because that’s just how the universe and space and time work. One shouldn’t be surprised that Marjorie Taylor Greene, who would have been screaming about witchcraft had she been alive in Salem in the 1690’s, would go all Old-Testament in the face of a celestial event science has explained for centuries now. I’d love to see someone do a deep dive on her life–what are her parents, that raised such an inbred moron, like? Siblings? Where did she go to school, if she did? There really is nothing worse than an idiot who thinks God speaks to them. I wonder if she thinks she’s the second coming of some Biblical character, like the idiot Speaker of the House (Louisiana does NOT elect its best people) thinks he’s Moses? Queen Jezebel would be my best guess as to which Biblical POS harlot she would be–or Herodias, mother of Salome.

In a few weeks I’ll be off to Alabama to meet Dad, after which we will drive up to Kentucky where I’ll stay for a few days. I’ve not seen Dad since October, so it’s well overdue, but of course I also had surgery in the meantime and therapy and so forth. I’ll be packing plenty of books to try to get caught up on my reading–and of course, I’ll be listening to audiobooks in the car while I drive. I’ve downloaded quite a few books to listen to in the car, and I’m really looking forward to the drive and letting my creativity roam as I drive. I am dreading that lengthy drive back to New Orleans, as always, but it could also be a but fun. I always love coming home to Paul and Sparky after being away for a while. The only traveling I’ll be doing for the rest of the year will be going to see Dad, so I am hoping to use the rest of the year to pay down some debt so I can make it to Left Coast Crime next year without a problem or worries.

And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close and head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I will talk at you again probably later.

Don’t You Know

Monday morning and it’s back to the office with me. The weekend was a bit of a bust; I did get some things done but zero writing. I missed the deadline for the anthology I was trying to write a story for, but despite a good start yesterday fatigue set in fairly early and I wound up spending most of the day in my chair, Sparky in my lap, while we continued watching Will Trent, which we are both enjoying. Today is also April Fool’s Day (does the apostrophe go before or after the s? I can never remember if it’s fool or fools), which is a kids’ thing, really. I don’t feel exhausted this morning, but I do feel like I could have certainly slept for longer.

This week I have to get back on track after last week was essentially a big loss for me, alas. I did get some things done last week, but it was derailed and then the weekend was also a complete loss. It was incredibly poor timing, of course, but sometimes life does happen–and it’s been happening to me a lot since January 2023 (really, you can even go back as far as the summer of 2022, when I got COVID), which kind of sucks. But that’s what life is, really; one long series of traumas with pleasant interruptions in between until you die. Well, that sure sounded pessimistic, didn’t it? It’s very easy to get caught up in the negative side of life and focus merely on that while not paying attention to the good things that go on in your life, especially when you keep getting derailed. (The anxiety side of my brain is trying really hard to send me into a depressive spiral here, but I am successfully holding it off this morning…so far.)

So, this is going to have to count as my reentry into my life after the festivals since last week was simply a holding pattern; Paul and I even talked about that last night between episodes of the show. Last week was simply a lost week during which I was able to get some things done on and around everything else that was going on. But it’s also a new month today, so I am going to try to get everything together this week and get my life back together. I’ll be going to visit Dad the first week or so of May, which will also be an interruption, but despite the lengthy drive there and back (I’m meeting him in Alabama first for the First Sunday in May, and then we’re driving north) I am kind of looking forward to it. I’ve got lots of books and stories to listen to on Audible (yay!) and of course, I always get inspired whenever I go to Alabama (or through Alabama). I do think I have my writing for the year figured out as well; I am going to finish the current one, finish everything I have unfinished on hand, and then I am going to write an entirely new project; and I know what the next two new ones are going to be. I do want to revise the story I didn’t finish and turn in for the anthology yesterday; it needs a strong rewrite, and I can also throw it into my short story collection, which will also then be finished and ready to go.

Progress, and getting back into a good headspace, is always a plus.

I did read some more of Last Summer yesterday, and that sense of foreboding just continues to grow with every page. I am enjoying the ride, and I know the book ends with tragedy; I do remember how this one and its sequel end, but I am still not entirely sure whether I am remembering the ending of the book from reading it before or from having seen the movie, which I also don’t remember much about, so can’t swear to having seen it. And also now that I am in the second half of the book closing in on the ending, I also see what Hunter had done with the two parts and it’s masterful yet chilling at the same time. It’s definitely a novel for adults, but it has teen protagonists; so is it young adult fiction? I am hoping to get it finished this week so I can move on to the Michael Koryta.

And on that note, I am bringing this to a close. Happy Monday and April Fool’s Day, Constant Reader, and have a lovely day.

Waterloo

Thursday and Work-at-Home Day Eve.

I did have a pretty good day yesterday; although I did start flagging a bit in the afternoon. I paid the bills, always depressing, and then stopped on the way home to make groceries and cleaned things up a bit around the apartment. I wrote last night and made some progress on the book–not enough, but it’s never enough–and also started working on another short story for a submissions call that I think’s deadline is next month sometime? It may even be later, one truly never knows unless one checks–and I really need to be better about putting deadlines for submission calls on my calendar. But that would make sense and be efficient!

You see where this is going, don’t you? Yes, I am starting to come out from under a bit, and yes, I am pretty pleased about it. My email inbox is down to almost nothing, and I’m starting to feel like my old self again–creative, with my mind zapping around in a million directions at all times, but now again able to zone in with extreme focus again when I need to. Whew. That’s quite a relief. I wasn’t terribly stressed; I just figured I’d have to figure out another way to push myself back into the writing somehow. I do wonder sometimes if not having stress and anxiety would become a problem for me in and of itself–but that is a vestige of the stress and anxiety, isn’t it? I’m so unused to this! I feel like I have so much more time than I did before, if that makes sense? My life has pared down in many ways, on every level, and I kind of like it like this. I like not getting worn out by the emotional rollercoaster of anxiety and all of its horrific side effects. I like being relaxed instead of tightly spooled. I like sleeping at night, and not being tired in the morning. I hated that feeling of drowning, not being able to keep up, and always falling further and further behind on everything.

I slept well again last night, which was great. I feel rested today, which is great, and my brain is actually functioning this morning. Let’s hope this is a good omen for the weekend, shall we? After I wrote last night, I did some cleaning around here and watched news clips on Youtube to catch up on what’s going on around the world. The Key Bridge collapse yesterday was a horrible event, and of course the right decided that it was somehow Pete Buttigieg’s fault that a container ship lost power and hit the bridge? Honestly, they are such garbage, and we’re lucky as a nation that we have someone compassionate, driven, and smart as Secretary of Transportation. After all, Maryland is a pretty consistent blue state, so why would they deserve any help from the White House had the coup attempt succeeded? We’d be living in a different country, for one thing, and we need to be sure that different country never happens. I think Dobbs and the Alabama Supreme Court decision on IVF were bridges too far for most Americans, as the special election in Alabama showed us this week. Women and men are PISSED OFF, and just because the media wants to keep shoving the right down our throats while undermining the left doesn’t mean a fucking thing. All the polling in Alabama was distinctly off, and it was a 35 point swing from the 2022 election. The Democrats need to keep hammering them on their discrimination and their contempt for women as anything other than brood mares; incubators for their children.

And how lovely would it be if a blue Congress codified the right to choose, the freedom to marry? The best fuck you ever to Alito and Thomas, the worst and most corrupt justices since Roger P. Taney. Congressional Republicans also exposed themselves by voting down IVF protections. And my guess is there will be another insurrection when Don Poorleone loses in November, count on it. The difference this time will be that the National Guard will be there in no-time, and if they kill more traitors like Ashli Babbitt, so be it.

And for the record, everyone involved in January 6th? We sent the Rosenbergs to the chair. Stop whining and do your time. You’re not patriots, you’re traitors. And for the record, conservatives in 1775 were Tories, i.e. were on the side of the British. Sorry you can’t read and aren’t capable of coherent, logical thought, but if you don’t know any history it’s probably best if you don’t bring it up. That’s why the Tea Party particularly infuriated me; they adopted an “iconic” Revolutionary War event, dressed themselves up that way, and called themselves “patriots”–for opposing the Affordable Care Act. In other words, they were calling themselves the modern-day equivalents of people protesting a massive corporate tax cut. What? That’s right, the tea tax was also a tax break for the East India Company, so they could sell tea in the American colonies more cheaply than American vendors, which also raised the question (again) of “taxation without representation.” The Affordable Care Act was definitely not taxation without representation–and the Tea Party was the root source of the MAGAts, and Sarah Palin was once its queen and shining star. Remember when we thought she was the worst the Republicans could inflict on the country? Ah, for the innocence of 2008 again; when grifting became a major player in American politics.

Heavy heaving sigh.

I have long been tired of the idea that the only real Americans live in the country and small towns, are Christians, and thus are the real patriots. Cities are the economic engines that drive the country, for the record. The point of our system is that we all cooperate together; the entire point of the government is compromise; not demand things all be your way and if you don’t get your way, you throw a tantrum and bring everything crashing down. There’s also no one way to be an American, either. The hijacking of patriotism by the right–by people who don’t understand their country or its government–is something I’ve long deplored. The goal was never perfection–the founders were very aware of human frailties and weaknesses–but to always strive to be better. And are red states better places to live than blue ones? Our new governor here in Louisiana seems determined to out-Desantis Desantis; who knows how much worse things are going to be here once he is finished doing the job of utter destruction of Louisiana that Bobby Jindal started?

I wish I had more time to devote to studying our politics here in Louisiana so I could write about it more.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great Thursday, Constant Reader, and you never know; I may be back later.



A Big Hunk o’ Love

Saturday morning and I slept late, and feel a bit fatigued. I graduated from PT yesterday, which was awesome–but I’ll miss going. I really liked my therapist.

I headed down to the Quarter in a Lyft yesterday after finishing my work-at-home duties, and didn’t have time to write yesterday, which I hope to do this morning. We (Paul) have that lovely suite up on the fourteenth floor of the Monteleone again–but of course I come home every night to take care of Sparky (who was waiting in the window when I got home). I went to the opening reception at the Keyes House in the Quarter (it’s called BK House now instead of its old name; in which the B stands for the general who started the Civil War–he was from New Orleans), which is an absolutely beautiful space, and I just realized I didn’t take any pictures, which I should do more of today and tonight. After the reception, where I ran into any number of delightful people (namedropping here–but amongst those I ran into were Rob Byrnes, Carol Rosenfeld, Amie Evans, Eric Andrews-Katz, Susan Larson, Trebor Healey, and Margot Douaihy), I went to eat (well, to watch them eat) with Steven Reigns, Karl (K. M.) Soehnlein, Marco Carocari, his husband Mark, and Trebor Healey. We went to that bar that used to be Yo Mama’s but has a different name now. It was lovely going down memory lane with Steven over all the years of Saints & Sinners, and remembering how it all happened in the first place all those years ago. Twenty-one years now, which is pretty amazing for a queer lit fest.

Then again, I married a pretty remarkable person.

I have to read today, and I think I have settled on my story from School of Hard Knox, “The Ditch,” because it’s an Alabama story and I can pull out my accent for it. Maybe not at first, but as I get into the story more, absolutely. I’ll also need to rehearse a bit this afternoon before I head down there again. I think today I’ll wear more sensible shoes than I did yesterday, so I can take the streetcar down and walk home at the end of the evening. It’s a lovely walk and the evenings are so cool and temperate…I really wanted to walk home last night rather than taking a Lyft home, but my shoes–I was wearing my new black-and-white saddle shoes, and I worried about walking all that way in them. Not that they would be uncomfortable, but the wear-and-tear on them for that long of a walk–that’s what my Adidas are for. I also noticed on the way to the Quarter in a Lyft (thanks, Tedzin, for the ride) that the Appellate Court building on Camp Street was named for John Minor Wisdom, who’d served there with distinction for over twenty years; it just struck me as funny yesterday that a Federal Appellate court building was named minor wisdom, which I am going to have to use in a book sometime.

I also did some chores and filing and straightening up around here yesterday, so the workspace is a lot less cluttered and a lot more functional now. I’ve also decided on a major project for this summer–getting rid of paper files. I don’t need a paper file for anything that isn’t really something in progress right now, but it’s also a massive undertaking that would require going through all the files…and there are so many files…but condensing them and cleaning out the files that I don’t really need much anymore would also make the workspace more functional and the apartment far less cluttered looking. I have so many ideas I won’t be able to write them all unless I not only live to well over a hundred but don’t get any NEW ideas for the rest of my life.

I think it’s safe to assume that’s never going to happen.

Sigh, I also have to start pulling my taxes together for my accountant. Sigh. What an odious chore, but like I’ve always said–there’s nothing more patriotic than paying your taxes so the country continues to be funded. That doesn’t mean I don’t take every deduction I can and try to get the bill down as much as possible, but I don’t ever complain about paying taxes. I kind of like paved roads and infrastructure and so forth. Call me a libtard; I wear it as a badge of honor–unlike the con(servative) artists out there, or the cosplay Christians who missed all the important messages of their religion to be better people.

And on that note, I think I am going to go sit and read for a bit before I amp up for writing. Have a great day, Constant Reader–I doubt I’ll be back later, but stranger things have happened.

I’m Gonna Get Married

Wednesday middle of the week blog, in which it is a miserable 48 degrees this morning in New Orleans, with a forecast high of a mere 67. Oh, well, I’ve survived worse, have I not? Indeed I have.

Yesterday turned out to be a good day. I finished the first draft of the short story (huzzah!) and started editing the first chapter of the book, primarily to get me back into the voice and swing of the story, and I feel like it’s already better than it was. It also felt delightful to be writing again, and the words were simply flowing out of me, which also was lovely. Needless to say, I was in a very good mood when I saved the files and closed Word. Hopefully tonight I’ll be able to get some more work done, and yes, I slept extremely well last night, too. I just felt better than I have about everything in a very long time.

I always forget how much I love to write, you know? I love writing and creating; which are my favorite things in the world to do. Part of the reason I was in the throes of another long-lasting malaise was because I wasn’t writing, which always affects my moods and how i feel about everything in my life and the world in general. The short story needs work, of course, it’s just a first draft, but once I finished it, I realized how to make the story stronger and make more sense to the reader. Huzzah for writing again! I also have my last supervised PT session this Friday morning, and then I am to do it all on my own. I have a lot of questions about that I will get cleared up at this last session. And once the Festivals are over, we’ll be back on our normal, most of the year schedule. I feel good still this morning–well rested, still pleased with the work I got done yesterday and very much looking forward to getting even more done today. The friend I had drinks with Monday night reminded me that I love to write, and that everything else is just a side effect. I’ve had some disappointments lately for sure–but that’s part of the up-and-down cyclical nature of the business side of things. Not everything is going to be as successful as you’d like, and it doesn’t mean I am a terrible writer or the book wasn’t good but rather that not enough people knew about the book to consider buying it. I’ve always been terrible about the business side of being an author; I need to make more of an effort in the future and learn how to do all the things I generally don’t like to do–but I also need to get over that and stop feeling like a carnival barker selling snake oil when I am doing it.

I am good at writing. And if I were able to devote all of my energy and focus into a book, that would be different.

I think my next read is going to be either a cozy or a Barbara Michaels reread. I’ve not reread some of my favorites of hers in years (I always end up going back to Ammie Come Home and Be Buried in the Rain but there are others I love almost as much, like The Dark on the Other Side, Witch, Prince of Darkness, and House of Many Shadows). I do want to write another Gothic at some point soon–I love Gothics–and there’s no better writer than Michaels to help get me into the mood and find the voice. There’s a New Orleans ghost story I want to write, and there’s at least one more Alabama book I want to write as well. I was thinking about reading She Who Was No More, the book Diabolique was based on, which is a fantastic and grim story. (I originally saw Diabolique in its American television movie remake, Reflections of Murder, which Sam Waterston, Joan Hackett, and Tuesday Weld.)

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader; I may be back later, one never can be entirely sure.