I got home last night around eight o’clock. I am very glad I went up there this weekend; it meant a lot to Dad and it was kind of helpful for me as well. I am still kind of in shock that I was able to sleep in the motel room on Saturday night; I actually slept better that night than I did at home on Sunday, but here we are. I am composing an entry about the First Sunday in May; I started writing it last night when I got home but don’t want to finish it while I’m sleepy or foggy from sleep. It needs a clearer head, to be certain. It was hot and humid yesterday, and I have a bit of a sunburn on my scalp from the incredibly bright hot sun as we went from cemetery to cemetery.
I am very tired this morning, but am really glad I went this weekend. I feel like some of the darkness has receded–perhaps not for good, make that most likely–I have long since learned to know that once the constant darkness starts to recede that there are still going to be bad days in the weeks and months to come, but that first wave of grief that I’ve been living with seems to be over. Stay tuned, and keep your seatbelt fastened; there’s still more turbulence to come.
I didn’t finish listening to Carol Goodman’s marvelous The Ghost Orchid in the car, but I can finish listening while doing some chores around the office that always need to be done. It’s really fantastic; with DNA from Dark Shadows, Mary Stewart, and Elizabeth Peters; another one of those books that make you think why do I even bother? But Carol’s one of my favorite writers (and favorite people) so I prefer to enjoy her work than beat myself up over not being able to write books as well–there’s no point in that kind of thinking in the first place.
I do feel like the cathartic feel from this weekend might help me buckle down and get back on top of everything. I am so behind on everything that it’s not even funny. I do have an eye appointment this Saturday–just getting my prescription checked; will order new glasses from Zenni if they are needed (and I suspect they are)–and hopefully I will be able to get deeper into the book this week and maybe–just maybe–get all caught up by the end of this coming weekend. I need to go over my to-do list and come up with a new one; I won’t be able to take books to the library sale because of the eye appointment but I should take a box down from the attic this week to get started on the ultimate purge, and hopefully think ahead and plan as much as I can while this good feeling lasts.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later.
Well, hello there, Constant Reader! Gregalicious checking in on you from the road, from a motel in Jasper, Alabama. It’s a bit surreal being back in this part of the world, once again seeing for the second time this year the part of the country from which I sprang, as it were. I got up yesterday morning and headed north in a brutal thunderstorm; got Whataburger in Tuscaloosa (and it’s right off Highway 59! I can get it on all trips north from now on!!! Huzzah!), and then cut over to Highway 69 North and found myself driving through the backroads and back ways of where we are from; and before I knew it, I was at Fowler’s Crossroads (which appears in Bury Me in Shadows) and heading through the twisting back roads to meet Dad at Mom’s grave. A second cousin was also at the graveyard visiting her parents (she might be a first cousin once removed, or something. Her mother and my father were first cousins; I don’t know how all that degrees of cousin works, figure it out if you want for yourself), and then my aunt showed up to keep us company. Dad was tending the grave, and he and my aunt got some lovely flowers for the graves (her husband, my father’s brother, passed in either October or November). Afterwards, we drove back over to Jasper where I checked in and hung out with my dad for the rest of the day. I’m glad I made this trip. I am really glad I got to see my father this weekend, and we started thinking about my next trip up north to visit him (and stay in Mom’s house).
I also think that I’ll be able to get back to living my life once I get back home, too. Coming here, being here, has lifted a weight off my chest and off my subconscious mind; in fact, on the way here I was thinking about the book instead of giving as much of my attention to Carol Goodman’s The Ghost Orchid, which of course is fan-fucking-tastic, as all Goodman novels are. (I am hoping to finish it on the way back to New Orleans tomorrow–it has everything I love, including a dual time-line! EEEE!) This trip has been cathartic for me in ways I didn’t think possible, and of course, tomorrow I’ll be spending the late morning/early afternoon visiting graves, and remembering my so-far-distant past. I get it now–the whole graveyard visit thing, which I had always thought before was morbid and part of our weird American cult of death. Now I understand why visiting the graves matters; it’s a way to feel close to our lost departed ones, to remember loving them and being loved by them (Dad said something poignantly beautiful to me today–“she was the first person who loved you” which is both beautiful yet horrible at the same time: beautiful because it was true, yet horrible at the same time for not understanding and recognizing that when she was alive so I could be more appreciative. I saw Andrew Garfield the other day on a Youtube clip from a talk show, where he talked about grief being “all the unexpressed love you have for the person you lost” and that he hoped that the grief would never completely go away, because the pain, no matter how bad it is, is a reminder of that love. Maybe someday I will have something profoundly beautiful to say about grief and loss; I am simply not there yet. Dad also had copies made of some photographs of her–when she was FFA Sweetheart in high school; a “glamour shot” photo she had done for my dad when they were in their fifties; and a candid photo he took of her on a beach in San Diego when they lived there briefly. Mom aged really well, I have to say; in the candid shot she was at least fifty-seven but could have easily passed for her thirties. She had gorgeous skin that was luminous when she was younger; in that FFA Sweetheart photo when she was only fifteen–if she wasn’t wearing the FFA Sweetheart jacket it could have easily been a classic Hollywood glamour shot from Hurrell. Her skin literally glows, the way Ingrid Bergman’s did in black and white. I was very lucky to have a beautiful mother and a handsome father; how their genes and DNA somehow mixed and came up with me is a mystery for the ages.
She certainly aged better than I have. I look like Uncle Fester now but she was beautiful till the moment her heart stopped.
I suppose it’s normal when you lose someone that you love that there are things you wish you could have back, that you have one more chance to talk to them. I wish I could go back to the Friday after Thanksgiving, which was the last time I was able to talk to my mother, and hold her and hug her and kiss her and tell her that I love her, instead of sitting there at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and feeling tired and dreading that twelve hour drive. The coffee was starting to make me feel nauseous because I hadn’t slept well and I realized you’re wasting time sitting here and the more coffee you drink the worse you’re going to feel so I abruptly announced I was going to just go ahead and go. I startled both Mom and Dad, and I know she didn’t walk out with me. I gave her a hug and a kiss at the top of the stairs and told her I loved her and went down the stairs, got into my car, and drove back to New Orleans at ninety miles per hour most of the way so I could get home as fast as I possibly could. Had I known that I wouldn’t see my mother again when she would know who I was? I would have stayed another day at least, or could have stayed another hour that morning, or something. I comfort myself slightly by reminding myself that of course she knew I loved her, that she always knew, even when I wasn’t the most lovable or best son–I was far from being a good child to either of my parents, really–but listening to my dad recite his litany of what he considers his failures as a husband and a father last night made me understand the futility of allowing myself to go down that path.
The first person who loved you.
That’s just wrecking, seriously.
I do think I am slowly starting to heal. I will never not miss my mother, but I think I am beginning to learn how to live with the loss.
In a little bit I’ll be loading up the car and driving north.
We watched more of The Diplomat last night, and I must say, what a terrific show. Keri Russell is fantastic, the writing and production values are top natch, and the cast? Chef’s kiss, really. I also managed to get some work done on the book last evening, as well as doing some chores around the house on breaks from work-at-home duties. I laundered the bed linens, forgot to pick up my dry cleaning, and noted that the humidity has returned–the Formosan termite swarms won’t be far behind, either. There have already been sightings reported on social media, and yet it’s not yet Mother’s Day, which was usually the demarcation line of swarm season. The work on the house next door also looks like it may be winding down at long last, and while the house looks lovely, I still miss my crepe myrtles.
I slept very well last night, so we’ll see how I feel sleeping in a motel tonight. I don’t have much to do to get ready for the drive; my Carol Goodman audiobook is downloaded to my phone, and I just need to pack my shaving kit and a change of clothes to be ready to go, after showering and shaving. I also need to queue up the directions on my phone, too. It should be, all in all, a lovely drive. Mississippi, despite everything, is quite beautiful to drive through, as is Alabama (the entire South is beautiful, more’s the pity), and of course, I’ll probably be working through plot points in my own book while I listen to Carol’s read beautifully through my speakers.
I am not sure what time I will get back here tomorrow, but I assume it will be late, so I will be tired going into my work week. Maybe I should have taken Monday off? But even if I am tired, I should be able to drag my ass to the office. It’s my get-caught-up-on-things day at the office; and I generally am never there for eight hours. Since I am not client-facing on Mondays I am thinking I could probably manage the day despite being tired…and maybe being tired on Monday will help me sleep the rest of the week. I mean, I can dream, can’t I? And Lord, I am behind on everything. Hopefully getting this weekend out of the way will remove the cloud from my subconscious and I can move on ahead without the depressive lows or out-of-nowhere emotional collapses. Again, I can dream, can’t I?
So, when I get back tomorrow night I need to remember to make a list of everything that needs doing in the meantime–there’s a lot I have to do and get done, so I need to make certain that everything that needs doing is written down so I can remember to get to it. I have an eye appointment next Saturday, and I also need to figure out some things about getting the hearing aids and so forth. Heavy heaving sigh. It also looks kind of gray out there this morning; perhaps I should check the weather between here and there before I leave this morning. A thought, to be sure. Looks like rain both today and tomorrow–all the way there and all the way back, as well as here too. Yay, he typed in sarcasm font. That’ll make the drive ever so much easier.
But I don’t mind these lengthy drives, although I’d prefer to teleport wherever I need to be rather than drive or fly. It’s also unusual for me to be gone two consecutive weekends–although of course, after I went to the library events in Birmingham and Wetumpka I had to go to Kentucky the next weekend, and back to Alabama the next–three weekends in a row with me not home. The discovery of audiobooks for the drives changed everything, really. I also worked on cleaning up the piles of books, but haven’t bothered pruning much because I can’t get to the library sale to drop off books before next weekend at the earliest.
I don’t know if there will be an entry tomorrow morning or if it will have to wait until I get home, or Monday morning, one or the other. (And I just realized of course it’s raining today; it’s Jazzfest and it always rains on one of those weekends.)
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader–not sure when I’ll be back. SO hang in there, okay? You got this.
Work at home Friday, woo-hoo! The excitement really never stops, does it? Ah, well.
Yesterday was a pleasant enough day, despite my complete exhaustion by the time the afternoon rolled around. I was fine in the morning, focused and getting things done, but once I went back to seeing clients after my lunch break, I was physically and mentally fatigued. I also had to pick up the mail on my way home–the traffic wasn’t nearly as terrible as it had been the day before; I do NOT know what that was all about, nor do I want to know, frankly. I came home, did some things, and then collapsed into my easy chair. We started watching that new HBO MAX show about the Watergate burglars starring Woody Harrelson and Justin Theroux (and if you would have told me in 1989 that Woody from Cheers would become one of our best character actors, I wouldn’t have stopped laughing until 1992), but while it’s exceptionally well done, E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy aren’t the kind of people I want to know better or see anything about as the lead characters of anything. It was eerie how well they reproduced suburban life in that period (also having Cersei Lannister playing Mrs. Hunt was an interesting twist), but again…I couldn’t get a sense of whether this was parody or striving for accuracy (which shows how insane Hunt and Liddy both are/were), so after one episode we tapped out and switched over to The Diplomat, which is amazing. I fell asleep during the second episode (I’ll rewatch it to get caught up at some point) because I was, simply stated, completely exhausted from a week of working and not sleeping well and emotional upset, I suppose. Last night I slept like a rock–completely dead to the world all night, and even slept for nearly ten hours before rising this morning rested and refreshed. It is quite lovely, frankly, and I feel terrific for the first time all week. Of course tomorrow I have to drive to Alabama (and back again on Sunday) but I have already selected Carol Goodman’s The Ghost Orchid to listen to on the ride to and fro, and I am kind of excited at the chance to listen to yet another brilliant book by one of my current favorite authors.
I’ve not had a chance to pick up Lori Roy’s brilliant Let Me Die in His Footsteps, which I was reading on the way home from Malice last Sunday and loving every word. Despite the fact she has two Edgars and another nomination from her first three books (which is pretty amazing on every level), I think her more recent work is even better than her earlier work. This book is also pretty fantastic, and I can see why it did win the Best Novel Edgar. Roy has a very hypnotic writing style, and is a master of voice; this story is told by two very different and very distinct voices with an alternating dual time-line, which is also something I love, love, love. The pity is that when I finally do finish this book, there will only be one Lori Roy novel left that I’ve not read, When She Comes Home, and I’ll have to hold onto that one until she publishes another book unless I want to (sigh) finish her entire published canon thus far.
I dread the day when I run out of Carol Goodman novels to read, for example.
It’s been a tough week, and I think that its my subconscious dealing with the issues of what this weekend means, really. Over the course of my life I’ve become really good at compartmentalizing my life into different rooms in my brain and shutting and locking the door on things, thinking I can’t deal with that now, I’ll deal with it later but some things are too big to be locked away, and they seep out through the cracks around the door in its frame and drag like a heavy stone at my being and emotions. I hit a major wall when I got home from work on Wednesday; I just got overwhelmed out of nowhere with grief and collapsed into my easy chair for some purring cat therapy. I also find that my moods can easily be shifted with essentially a snap of the fingers this week. I am unused to this kind of grief, and periodically wonder–with a sense of dread and horror–how much worse this will be when I lose Dad, as he is the only parent I have left. I know I am lucky. I had my mom for nearly sixty-two years; most people don’t get that long with one parent, let alone two. How much harder would this have been to deal with when I was younger and more immature?
But that is the kind of thing I always dismiss when it comes to mind–the path of regret is one of futility, wasted time and energy and emotion. You cannot change anything, so what is the point of trying to figure out or thinking about how different things might have been had you chosen A instead of B at this point, or D instead of Y then? The ripple effect of every choice we make reaches people we don’t know in ways we’ll never know, so maybe different choices made by me could have resulted in horrible things happening to other people, and why on earth would I wish bad things for people I don’t even know? That sounds terrible, frankly, and nothing I would ever want.
In some ways, this morning I am kind of looking forward to the drive north. I mean, yes, the destination is grim and sad, but it’s a beautiful drive; I have a great novel to listen to, and I really am looking forward to seeing my father. I want to get a good look at him, you know, and listen to him and see how he is doing. It’s so hard to tell via email or text, you know? Nothing like having eyes on someone for a proper assessment. I’ve decided to go up there this summer for a while, keep him company and spend some more time with him. (And yes, hateful little voice inside my head, I am very aware that I should have been doing this when Mom was alive. No sense in regrets, but I don’t want to feel this way when I lose Dad, so…changes in mentality and thinking are necessary going forward. I do wish it were easier to get up there than it is, though. I don’t think anyone can fault me for thinking that, either.)
Ah well, I have work-at-home duties to take care of as well as chores, so I am going to bring this to a close and head into the spice mines. I’ll check in with you again tomorrow before I leave, Constant Reader, and have a lovely day.
And somehow, here we are at Thursday again. It is kind of annoying and irritating how quickly time is slipping through my fingers; but then this was a short work week because I was off on Monday. I’ve felt a bit out of sorts and off-balance this week, which I think is because of the Malice come-down plus knowing that I have to go to Alabama this weekend. It’s hard for me to focus and get settled with that journey ahead of me, and while I am not necessarily dreading it, I also know it’s going to be emotionally draining and exhausting so there’s some trepidation, to be sure. It’s also Mother’s Day the next weekend, so that’s going to probably be a bit rough (note to self: text your sister). Yay?
(Apologies, for some reason I can’t substitute text for links anymore. Fucking updates.)
Anyway, this anthology has my story “Solace in a Dying Hour” in it, and this is a story I am really proud of. It’s one where I went to rural Louisiana/bayou country yet again, which also meant navigating stereotypes, tropes, and clichés. I had originally intended to write a story about the grunch (a mythical creature sighted occasionally out in old New Orleans East, but I think his old stomping grounds now are neighborhoods) but in looking up information about that particular Louisiana legend I stumbled over a bunch more that I’d never heard of, and one in particular–le feu follet–really struck my fancy. These are fairy lights seen out in the swamp or along a bayou, kind of like a will-o’-the-wisp. Usually no larger than a candle flame, these lights have been said to be many things, but the definition I went with–the souls of the unshriven dead, come to claim other souls–worked for what I was trying to do, and the more I thought about it, the more the story began to come together in my mind. I think it’s a lovely piece of writing, frankly, and it really must be if I am going to say it publicly. It turned out exactly the way I wanted it to, and I had some expert editorial help from Katya de Becerra and Narrelle M. Harris (who worked with me on my Sherlock story; I really love working with Narrelle) that made it even better than I thought it could be while still remaining what I wanted the story to be; their input was invaluable. Good editors, y’all, are worth their weight in gold. As you can imagine, I am very excited about the story and the anthology.
I slept decently last night; I was again very tired when I got home. It took me an hour because of traffic–I stopped at the Rouses’s in the CBD on the way home, but was only there for fifteen minutes. I left the office at straight-up four thirty and got home after five thirty. It was the worst I’ve seen traffic in the CBD since before the pandemic. Not sure what there was about yesterday that brought horrendous pre-pandemic traffic back to New Orleans, but here we are, right? Heavy sigh. Tonight I am going to swing uptown on my way home to get the mail, so hopefully Claiborne traffic won’t be hellish tonight. And tomorrow is my work-at-homeday, before getting up Saturday and driving north. It was odd; yesterday morning on the way to work the traffic was also heavy. It’s been a hot minute, but I always used to drive here before the pandemic at off times so I never had to deal with traffic very much. I am beginning to think my working in the evenings is a thing of the past I may never see again, doomed to a life of getting up at six a.m. Monday thru Thursday for the rest of my working life. That sounds incredibly tiresome, doesn’t it? But I imagine I’ll be tired all of next week, too, and won’t get caught up on rest until the following weekend. Not loving this, for sure.
But in other weird developments, I discovered that Tuscaloosa–where I will be turning north to head to the home country–has WHATABURGER. It is almost sad how excited finding that out made me; I am definitely scheduling my trip to stop there for lunch on my way up. How cool is that? Usually when I drive north I tend to stop at Hardee’s, since we don’t have them in New Orleans and they’re basically Carl’s Jr, which I loved when I lived in California (and yes, I know the family that owns them is homophobic right-wing trash) so I always see that as a bit of a ‘treat’ for me when I go on long drives. I do love fast food hamburgers, although the old classics (McDonalds, Burger King, and Wendy’s) all are kind of disgusting to me now. Give me Whataburger, Five Guys, or Sonic. (I am starting to not like Hardee’s; the last few times it was just kind of meh)
Fascinating stuff, am I right?
What can I say? I’m a little bleary this morning, so maybe it’s best to head into the spice mines and be done with it. Talk to you tomorrow, Constant Reader!
I was tired yesterday. I slept okay Monday night, but not deeply and I did keep waking up so it was a restless night at best–and I sure as hell didn’t want to get up when the alarm went off yesterday morning. I was also behind at the day job when I got there, so had to play catch up a bit between clients. It was all good, but still a bit more stressful than I would prefer; I also kept thinking it was Monday all day which drove me a bit insane.
I also discovered that my insurance actually does not cover hearing aids for adults; I must have missed the part about having to be under eighteen when I looked it up. Which kind of sucks that in order to hear I have to pay for it out of my own pocket. The good news is I’ve made it this far without them, so I guess I can start trying to save up to pay for them somehow, or maybe I can get them financed or something. I’m not entirely sure, but it’s irritating. Our health care system has been fucked up since, well, the Reagan administration (quelle surprise; what modern day horror doesn’t date back to that bastard?), but the decline of the airline industry actually can be dated to Carter; he was the one who deregulated the airlines under the guise of increasing competition so fares would be more competitively priced. We see how well that worked out, haven’t we? American, United, Delta, Southwest and Jetblue are all that are left now from the glory days of air travel–Eastern, Pan Am, TWA, Continental, Northwest and many others having either folded or been taken over by another airline. Glad we have all these choices now, right? (Sorry, I was thinking about how the airline industry has declined over the course of my lifetime while at the airport the other day, and clearly it was still in my subconscious. I love Jimmy Carter, but this was a mistake.)
I slept better last night. I still woke up a couple of times but I feel very much more rested this morning than I did yesterday. I was tired when I got home from the office so immediately put the dishes away and started another load before the fatigue overtook me. I got caught upon Vanderpump Rules–more on that later–and when Paul got home from the gym we watched this week’s Ted Lasso, which was lovely and melancholy at the same time. (My God, how I love Jamie Tartt! Phil Dunster is killing it in the role this season, too. What an incredible character arc–and now we are seeing a lovely redemption for Nate, who disappointed me but we get to see our Nate again this season, which is so nice)
I did manage to work a little on the book yesterday, and it took me a little while to get reacclimated to the story and everything. I think I’ll be back on track with it again today and thru the rest of the week before I leave for Alabama on Saturday morning; and while the drive up there and back over the weekend will probably be tiring, I think I can see the end of the book coming. It might take me awhile to get there, but the end game is there and I need to really focus at some point to get it done. I may have to take a long weekend in mid-May to get there. Heavy heaving sigh. It’s always about time management for me, isn’t it, and being tired? How did I used to do this all the time? Oh yes, I was younger and hadn’t had COVID yet. *shakes fist at universe*
I need to stay away from Twitter more. I get so angry whenever I go there, and am always tempted to say something snarky or in kind to a troll–I don’t always succeed in deleting the tweet before hitting send, either–and while I am not worried about going viral or getting cancelled (if it happens, it happens, you know, and if I fuck up, I kind of deserve it), I am trying not to be that person. I don’t want to troll trolls on-line, nor do I want to get into tweet-fights with anyone. It’s all just a waste of time and energy that can be utilized better elsewhere (I do, however, reserve the right to troll anyone trolling a friend), and does no one any good. Twitter is the worst of us, really; originally intended for people to connect and interact with each other, it basically evolved into a place for people to complain. Oh, someone cut you off in traffic? Tweet angrily about it! You watched a show you didn’t enjoy? Tweet about it! And so on and so on. Twitter can be fun; I’ve certainly had fun there with friends and of course there’s always my “Greg meme” face, which can be used for surprise, shock, or horror (I actually have the picture saved on all devices for easy access and use as “the horror”); for some reason that always makes people laugh. It is a funny photo, and I will always be grateful that Josh Fegley snapped that shot so perfectly timed to get that expression on my face when the Evil Mark said, well, something evil while we were at Drag Bingo at Oz. I’ve tried repeating that photo without success; it was something in and of the moment, I guess.
Or I’m just older and my face sags so much I can’t replicate the expression. One or the other is the most likely, or probably both.
Heavy heaving sigh.
And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.
Well, it’s back to the office with me today. It seems like it’s been a hot minute since I’ve been to work; last Wednesday seems like it was a very long time ago. I am going to be undoubtedly terribly behind on everything once I get there, but that’s the hard-knock life I suppose. I didn’t sleep great last night, and I am a little tired this morning–groggy–but hopeful the coffee will take care of that. I didn’t want to get up either, and now that I am up I am uninspired to do anything. I think I might be a little stressed about everything I have to get done this month but there’s naught to do but place nose on grindstone and move forward.
I had my hearing test yesterday and it’s official; I am hard of hearing. When I am speaking to someone one on one with no ambient noise, I only hear 80% of what people are saying to me. Start adding ambient noise and the percentage of hearing drops dramatically; basically she told me what I already knew: I cannot hear in restaurants and bars. Apparently operating through insurance to get the hearing aids I clearly need is going to require effort, as well. (I also had a co-pay at the office, which was odd; the deductible was paid off earlier this year and he’s in network–so I need to look into that as well. Fucking insurance shouldn’t be this difficult.) I wasn’t thrilled to get this diagnosis, but at the same time was kind of like well, at least it’s not my imagination or something I am doing on purpose. I have an eye appointment a week from Saturday, too, so yes, getting new appointments and taking care of basic maintenance all over the place. I also have a dental appointment at some point too; I stopped procrastinating about everything and tried to get it all taken care of in one day, calling and making appointments all over the place. It was most impressive for me, especially given how much I hate doing that sort of thing.
It was a beautiful day in New Orleans yesterday; eighty-eight degrees but not humid at all, which is heavenly. To me, that just feels pleasantly warm and comfortable; it’s amazing what a difference dry air makes in this case. I did manage to get all of my errands done, the laundry taken care of, and other chores around the house. I was tired most of the day, despite the good night’s sleep I had Sunday, and last night Paul and I finished watching The Watchful Eye, so you don’t have to. It’s not very good; the plot is full of holes, the writing and acting are kind of bad, and the dialogue is outright laughable at times, but it was entertaining enough in that train wreck kind of way that can be fun to watch at times. I started reading Lori Roy’s marvelous Let Me Die in His Footsteps on the flight home Sunday, and I really need to get back to it because it really is remarkable.
God, I have so much to do! The mind literally reels. And this weekend I have to go meet Dad in Alabama, and of course it’s also Mother’s Day, which is going to make it that much more difficult to deal with. It’s not an ordeal by any means; it’s a relatively easy drive and I have a Carol Goodman to listen to in the car both directions, but it’s going to be emotionally draining and means my weekend is gone and cannot be used to get caught up. Yay. But I just need to buckle down this week, ignore the cat’s whining when I get home, and focus focus focus on getting the manuscript revised as well as start editing another one. Heavy heaving sigh. But if I can make it through May…everything should be out of the way at the end of the month and so I can spring into June with nothing due anywhere, which would be absolutely lovely and am not quite sure on how I will process that? LOL. It’s not like I don’t have a million things in progress that need to be finished, either.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.
And today I am off to the airport to head up to Bethesda for Malice Domestic. How exciting! I’ve not been to Malice in a very long time; I don’t remember what year it was, but it was also my first trip to New York for the Edgars; the two events merged into a single trip. It was quite fun. There were a lot of friends there, and I know we had a lovely after-party on Saturday night post-banquet that was so much fun my sides hurt from laughing. I don’t know that this Malice will live up to the great time I had the first time I went, but I am glad I decided to go, after a little push from Catriona McPherson once the Agatha nominations were announced earlier this year. And while I tend to not make a big deal out of award nominations, I also realized when are you ever going to be nominated for an Agatha again? Never, that’s when so bearing that in mind I decided what the hell, I’ll spend the money–which I will regret later, undoubtedly–and go.
And let’s be honest; I am not traveling for book business again for the rest of the year other than Bouchercon. (note to self: start tracking expenses for the year so you can keep up and be ready at the end of the year–something I say I will do every year and never end up doing) I’ve already checked in for my flight (huzzah!) and have my boarding pass, and it’s a nonstop, coming and going. I used to not mind changing planes when I was younger; now that I’m getting older it’s just one more ordeal as part of traveling. As much as I want to go back to Europe–we’re thinking about Amsterdam and Berlin next year–the thought of all that flying and all that time in airports just exhausts me. Maybe I can get my doctor to prescribe something for me just for the longer overseas flight that will knock me out immediately.
I have to finish packing in a moment. I was tired last night when I got home from work, and had to do stuff–laundry, the dishes–after working on the book and then tried to start gathering what I need to take with me. I have almost everything clothing wise gathered already; I just need my dress shoes and some jeans, my slippers and some sweats…and I also have to gather all the technology I need to take with me–cords, chargers, accoutrement for my laptop–as well as the books I am taking on the trip with me. I really don’t want to get ready or do anything; all I feel like doing is going back to bed, in all honesty–but I am sure once the coffee starts kicking in, I’ll light a fire under my ass and get me going. The weather is supposed to be rainy today; I think I’ve packed the right clothing for the trip. It’s going to be warm during the days and chillier at night; I am not taking a jacket with me so any out of doors ventures after dark will probably wind up being terribly cold for me.
I’ll live, I would imagine.
I do wish I would have had more time to work on getting the house cleaned and organized; I’m going to hate coming back home to a messy house. But I also took off Monday so I can have a day to reorient myself back to my life again, run errands, and so forth. I also have a doctor’s appointment in the afternoon that day–I’ll probably swing by the store and make groceries on the way home from that. And of course, next weekend I will be driving up to Alabama to see my dad–long story, too long for now–so yes, there will be lots of pressure and time issues when it comes to getting this manuscript finished. And I have another one to edit, great.
And on that note, I need to get back to preparing for the trip. Have a great Thursday, Constant Reader, and tomorrow I’ll be checking in from Malice.
I honestly believe that a lot of our problems in this country are a direct result of an attempt to enforce some national prudery standard that relentlessly tries to shame any and every one of us for the perfectly natural and normal human functions of our body. We are seeing this again in this modern age, as the Morality Police (who are all-too-frequently hiding some horrific skeletons in their own closets) try to get books banned, discussions about sex and sexuality and gender stifled and silenced, and entire segments of the population erased from public view and hidden away again because it makes them, well, uncomfortable.
Well, semi-automatic weapons, religion, and bigotry make me uncomfortable, but that doesn’t matter, apparently, as I am (to borrow a phrase from John Irving and The World According to Garp) a “sexual suspect.”
Ironically, I distinctly remember what television was like back when it was heavily censored and what was considered wholesome family entertainment was aired. It didn’t mean sex wasn’t talked about, it just meant that it had to be implication rather than outright said–which led to incredibly stupid phrases to stand in for sexual contact, or sexual intercourse, that were completely transparent and frankly, kind of stupid. That was the kind of television I grew up with, where everything was plastic and phony and created a false sense of what the country was really like (where, for example, are Mayberry’s Black people?), and some people watch those old shows and think, oh, what a better and simpler time we lived in then! We must get back to that world of innocence!
Which, of course, is complete and utter horseshit. Television of the 50s and 60s most certainly were not reflections of culture and society as a whole, no matter how much someone might want that to be the truth…it was not.
When I was a child, I hated the stupid, coy euphemisms screenwriters employed to mention sexual activity and escape the censors; “hanky-panky” is perhaps one of the worst. “Making love” is another one that puts my teeth on edge; “making whoopie” still another, and perhaps the worst offenderof all was ‘vo-dee-oh-doe’ from LaVerne & Shirley. Even when I was a kid that kind of “nudge-nudge wink-wink” kind of thing annoyed me; I can remember thinking, many times, “just say fuck, for Christ’s sake.” “Making love” is one that was really popular on soaps, and it’s always said tearfully; it also made me want to slap the speaker (and of course the movie Let’s Make Love really should be Let’s Fuck). The fact that we don’t have a common, easy to use word to substitute for fucking that delicate sensibilities won’t consider profane is part of the problem in this country, frankly. Oh, no! Sex is dirty, we can’t talk about that! We can’t come up with a non-offensive word for it because just thinking about sex upsets some people. God forbid we actually have a realistic, honest conversation about sex and sexuality. I hate to break it to you prudes, but sex is normal and healthy. The fact that our culture has tried so desperately to appease the prudes by turning sex and sexuality into something we’re just not supposed to talk about has put braces on our brains, and anchored fear and loathing to our sexuality; if our mightiest God in this country is Money, the second mightiest is SHAME. Having your body react to stimulation by getting aroused? SHAME ON YOU.
When I was growing up–and granted, things have gotten a little better since then–even masturbation was considered something shameful that no one would ever admit to; nothing like learning repression when you’re going through puberty. It was an insult to call someone a jack off; you mocked boys by talking about them jacking off…which was something I did pretty regularly, so even more SHAME. And when you take into consideration the fact that even as young and sheltered as I was, that I knew my sexuality–my physical and intellectual and emotional attraction to other men–was wrong and something else to be ashamed of; not only was I masturbating but I was thinking about men while I was doing it: DOUBLE WHAMMY.
It took me years to shake off that prudish conditioning, and it wasn’t until I stopped feeling shame about sex and my sexuality that I finally started to actually live my life, rather than having a life that just happened to me. Fear and shame had made me passive; afraid that being myself and living the kind of life I wanted to would cost me friends, family and employment; afraid that embracing having sex with other men (and exploring every element of what that meant) would lead to an infection that could kill me; afraid afraid afraid.
I often say that I refuse to live in fear, but that I am also sensible; I always am acutely aware of my surroundings and everyone around me–while that may have developed from being gay and knowing that made me a target, I think it’s prudent and smart to always be aware, regardless of who and what and where you are.
Given my prudish upbringing and conditioning, as well as the shame and fear I lived with for so long, it is kind of interesting that I started write erotica in my late thirties. Writing erotica for me was an education in many different ways. I learned a lot about myself while writing it, for one thing; for another, I taught myself how to write short stories by writing erotica (beginning, middle, end is never as apparent or obvious as in an erotic short story), and I was also able to work through a lot of my own issues with shame by writing erotica. The first erotica story I ever wrote, “The Wrestling Match,” was a liberating experience for me; I found myself blushing with embarrassment as I wrote it, which was an interesting (to me) phenomenon. Why was I so embarrassed to write about desire, lust, and sex?
Because years of conditioning to associate shame with desire and sexuality had taken firm root in my mind. It was an interesting experience–and the next time I wrote an erotic story, tit was an entirely different situation; there was no shame or embarrassment. Apparently, all it took was writing that first story to work through it…it was also interesting, because around that same time I was trying to get caught up with all the queer fiction and nonfiction I hadn’t known existed for such an extended period of time, and reading has always been how I learned about anything. I was reading Dorothy Allison’s essay collection Trash (which should be required reading, really), and Dorothy’s point that if we spoke honestly and openly about sex and sexuality (and other aspects of human life that for whatever reason we’ve been conditioned to think we can’t talk about) a lot of the stigma and shame most people feel would be eliminated. As long as your fantasies don’t involve hurting anyone or children–if everyone involved is able to give informed and full consent–there’s nothing to be ashamed of, really. But we’ve been conditioned in western civilization since Catholicism conquered the Roman Empire to consider anything of the body to be sinful and shameful; things of the mind and spirit are what we are supposed to focus on while denying the earthy sinfulness of our sexual desire. (This also goes for other bodily functions, like waste and gas) This is particularly true when it comes to kink. We’ve been conditioned in this country to think anything besides missionary position between a man and a woman is something so beyond that it must be shamed, and reacted to with revulsion. Why? As long as no one is being hurt and everyone is on board, I don’t care if you like being spanked, or lashed with cat o’nine tails; or if you like to wear leather and get a thrill from it. My own kinks primarily are focused around the domination/submission play of wrestling; I’ve written about that extensively enough to not feel the need to go into it again here (but check out my erotic pro wrestling novel, Going Down for the Count, available at any bookseller on-line!).
We don’t have honest conversations about sexuality and desire in this country. Writing an erotic short story was incredibly freeing for me; it broke the bonds of shame that indoctrination had built up in my brain. It may not be the case for everyone else, but it’s always interesting to me that people never question themselves when it comes to their own prudery, lusts and desires. (The way they depict it on the hilarious animated comedy series about puberty, Big Mouth, is particularly genius: the Shame Monster.) If you feel shame about your sexuality and your desires, shouldn’t you examine that? Where did it come from? Why do you feel this shame, and what is its root cause?
I do spend a lot of time gazing at my own navel and trying to figure out where all of my phobias and fears and so forth come from, so it’s always interesting to me when people don’t and seem to have no interest in self-examination. Maybe it’s just another form of my own narcissism and self-absorption; that could easily be the case. I sometimes wonder if the reason others don’t reflect on themselves and self-evaluate is because they are somehow more comfortable in their own skins than I am in mine. It’s certainly possible.
But the only way we can stop a lot of the bigotry and hatred in this country is to start being open and honest about sex, sexuality, and desire. To stop shaming people for being interested in sex, and exploring their fantasies and desires. Almost all of our prejudices are rooted in this fear of sex and sexuality; white supremacy is, in some ways, about protecting the “purity” of their blood and “womanhood” from the sexual predation of non-whites. (That was really what the trial in To Kill a Mockingbird was about; but interestingly enough Harper Lee, in illustrating Southern white bigotry through a rape trial, was also unintentionally sending a very strong message to her readers about class structures in the South; but that’s a subject for another time. White people really love that book….)
Banning books and discussion of sexuality and gender doesn’t make those things go away; instead, it just makes them even more enticing as forbidden, things that are dirty and we aren’t supposed to talk about.
Then again, if we are going to talk about these things, people also need to listen–and the ones who need it most? Never are the ones listening in the first place.
Monday morning of Malice week. Ugh, all the little things one has to do to get ready for traveling. Make a list of what to pack, take inventory of the kitchen to make sure Paul has what he needs while I’m gone, and so on and so forth. Heavy heaving sigh. But my flight Thursday isn’t super early; eleven-ish, if I recall correctly, which means I don’t have to be at the airport until around nine, which isn’t bad. I’m going to take some books with me to read for pleasure at the airports and while in flight; I will be editing when I can in my room periodically trying to get this revision finished by the end of the month. The weekend wasn’t nearly as productive as it could have been–there was another wave of depression and grief to be gotten through this weekend, unfortunately–but I did make some progress, which I am taking as a win. I did also make a to-do list for the week; that should help in some ways.
We watched A Knock at the Cabin last night, which I enjoyed; a lot more than I usually enjoy an M. Night Shyamalan movie. I had also enjoyed the book on which it was based, The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay, who is one of our best horror writers today; I’ve enjoyed everything of his I’ve read thus far. The film follows the book very closely; it’s one of those claustrophobic horror stories where some city folk take a vacation in the country at a remote cabin–but remote and country are very much staples of horror; someone really should do a look at the trope of “city folk in the country” horror–and things of course go very south. The film is very well cast; Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge play Eric and Andrew, a gay couple who’ve adopted a young Asian girl they’ve named Wen and they make an adorable little family group. The location of the cabin is idyllic and tranquil and beautiful; the perfect spot for some city folk who want to get away from the every day and rest and relax. Wen collects grasshoppers in a jar because she wants to study them; the movie opens with her catching grasshoppers and then catching a glimpse of a very big man coming through the woods to talk to her. This is Leonard, played very well by Dave Bautista, who is the leader of a group of four people who have seen visions and have concluded that in order to stop the apocalyptic end of the world, they must come to this cabin and present the family with a horrible choice: they have to sacrifice one of their own in order to stop the end of the world. Are they crazy? They sound like it, as they try to reason with the family…but what if they aren’t? The movie’s ending is different than the book’s–there was no way they could film the book’s ending, really–but I do prefer the book’s ending than the film’s; it seemed like the inevitable outcome, and made the most sense. It’s a good movie, I do recommend it, but one thing I’ve always been curious about since reading the book and was only heightened by viewing the film: why a gay family? I gave Tremblay props when I read the book, because they were very real and didn’t seem forced or stereotypical at all; I thought it should stand as an excellent example of someone who is not gay writing gay characters. The politics of the representation–gays in peril–is one I am not going to give any time to; sure, the gay family was in danger almost from the minute the credits rolled, and it was nice having a gay couple to root for in a horror film. Horror by its very nature is disturbing and tragic; you cannot have gay representation in horror and then not expect the gay people to go through some things, you know? And having gay characters also adds another dimension to the home invasion situation–are they crazy, are they telling the truth, or did they target a gay family purposely? There’s an essay to be written about the book and the movie from a sociopolitical and sociocultural perspective, but I don’t know that I am the right person to write such a thing; I’m not an academic, after all, and have very little desire to ever be an academic.,.although that sometimes can explain my insecurities about thinking deep and heavy thoughts and wanting to write deep and heavy essays picking apart and deconstructing gay representation in modern fiction, with an emphasis on horror and crime.
I also read some academic treatises this weekend, one about being gay and the gay rights movement’s intersectionality and how it got away from that in the beginning only to circle back around to it in the present day, and the other about the television show Dark Shadows, which probably had more influence on me, my writing, and my preferences when it comes to reading, film, and television than anything else I’ve watched or read in my life. I know I used to watch classic black and white films with my grandmother (she was a big fan of the gay icons, ironically: Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck, and Katharine Hepburn; she also liked horror and noir, and she was a fan of Dark Shadows, as was our babysitter down the street, Mrs. Harris), so pretty much my course was set when I was a little boy–gay writer was my future. I should write more about Dark Shadows–I was actually thinking last night that I should write a memoir of being a writer; my influences and how they shaped my creativity and what I actually write–not that anyone would be interested in reading such a thing, of course; which is partly why I don’t write more personal essays. Just as I’ve never really been interested in writing a writing manual, or one of those Greg Herren teaches you how to write a novel things. I always feel like a fraud when I talk about writing; never does my Imposter Syndrome strike as hard as it does when I am talking about writing or teaching a workshop. I don’t know.
It’s back into the office with me today. It’s a light day for me; mostly busy work, like data entry, filing, resupplying testing rooms, that sort of thing. It’s always nice to ease back into the week with an easy day in the office. It’s also weird to know that I am leaving on Thursday morning; the trip doesn’t seem real to me yet even though I’ve already made plans to meet up with people while I am there. Looks like I’m going to have to take a Lyft or an Uber from the airport once there, which is fine. And then of course when I get home I have to make up for lost time with the manuscript. Heavy heaving sigh. It wasn’t a good weekend for working, really; I kept spiraling and had to finally, on both days, remind myself that my mental health was more important than a deadline and so focused on positivity and and worked when I was able to get things done. The house isn’t nearly in the kind of shape I would like for it to be in when I am leaving for a weekend (two in a row; the next weekend I am off to Alabama) but seriously–when is it ever? I just need to make sure everything is in order before I go away on Thursday morning. Heavy heaving sigh.
And my books that I’ll be taking to read with me are going to be That Summer Night on Frenchmen Street, Wined and Died in La,, Let Me Die in His Footsteps, and Monday’s Lie. I am not going to get through all of these, of course; I may even cut it down to two–like I won’t be buying books in the book room, please–and I will also be working on the revision while I am there, too. (I so wanted to be finished before I leave…)
And on that note, I am going to get cleaned up and head into the office. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.
Queer and Loathing in America 