Category: Alabama

The Second Time

Saturday morning and LSU plays at eleven, which means I have an extremely short window to get things this morning. I fell asleep in my chair watching the debut episode of Dangerous Liaisons, which was a great idea for a series in theory, but I wasn’t impressed with the execution. I doubt we’ll continue with it–a shame, because it’s one of my favorite stories of all time; I read the original novel after the Glenn Close film was released in the 1980’s and have loved it ever since. (I also love the Cruel Intentions adaptation of it; I even adapted it into my gay erotic fraternity novel Wicked Frat Boy Ways) It also rained overnight–I slept very deeply and well last night–and of course I woke at five again this morning but napped on and off until rising just before eight.

LSU can actually clinch the West Division of the SEC today with a win over Arkansas–either outright and a share of it; should Alabama beat Mississippi today, it’s theirs if they win. If Mississippi wins, the pressure is back on LSU to win out; both would end up tied for the West if they both win out, but LSU goes to the championship game by virtue of having beaten Mississippi when they played. It’s a very chaotic college football season, folks; the kind that rarely comes around and things happen that never usually happen. (I still can’t believe LSU beat Alabama last week.) Just a month ago, things looked very bleak for the season indeed for LSU, and I am so proud of how they bounced back after that embarrassing loss to Tennessee. Several things happened this year that have never happened before: LSU had never beaten both Auburn and Florida on the road in the same season before, let alone beaten them both on the road AND beat Alabama. LSU hadn’t beaten Alabama in Baton Rouge since 2010 (the last time Alabama had lost twice this early in the season–but I doubt they will go on to lose to Auburn in the Iron Bowl as they did in 2010), hadn’t beat Florida four years in a row since 1977-1980, and the Tennessee loss was the first time the Vols have beat LSU since 2005.

Okay, I’ll stop boring you with my football fandom. GEAUX TIGERS!

Although I have to add I don’t know how I’ll manage to stay calm during the LSU game–and today I find myself rooting for Alabama. College football always gets interesting later in the season…

I’m going to try to work on edits during the games today; I am not sure how well that is going to go. I’m probably not going to leave the house this weekend outside of a lunch date tomorrow; I really need to work on the book and I’m even going to have to (sigh) not watch the Saints game tomorrow and work instead. I’m running out of time on my deadline, which is terrifying to me, and I have a lot of other things I have to write as well. I really need to make a thorough and complete to-do list; maybe after I finish and post this. I did get a lot of chores done yesterday around the work-at-home duties; laundry and dishes and the kitchen are under control this morning, so I don’t need to do anything this weekend on that score. But whoa boy, was I worn out once five thirty rolled around. I repaired to my chair and watched Youtube videos (and yes, I watched the LSU-Alabama highlights again because I still can’t believe LSU beat Alabama)–I watched a really great historical one about the fall of Constantinople in 1204 to the 4th Crusade, and another interesting one about the camp aesthetic of Mommie Dearest–until Paul got home, and we got caught up on Andor, which I am really enjoying; I’ve actually enjoyed all the Star Wars television shows other than The Book of Boba Fett, which I should probably give another chance to, before switching to Dangerous Liaisons, which was, frankly, boring and the revised plot doesn’t make much sense–a wealthy older noblewoman would not be able to confer a title on anyone; that was the prerogative of the King and the King only, especially in absolutist France of the eighteenth century, so yeah–it wasn’t just being tired. I can forgive historical inaccuracies as a necessity for dramatizations, but being so blatant and deliberate in being wrong like that for the purpose of plot and story is something I cannot condone by rewatching. I am not a purist either when it comes to adaptations of novels into series and films, either–I enjoyed Cruel Intentions, after all–but in all honesty, there was so much more to the original story that had to be cut and removed from any film adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses that could have been implemented into telling the story over the course of a season–perhaps even a second–and the fallout and aftermath from the exposure of the Marquise de Merteuil’s letters could have also been interesting.

Ah, well. Great idea, poor execution.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. The game starts in less than two hours (!!!) and I need to get some things done. Have a happy Saturday, Constant Reader!

Miranda

Monday morning and it’s very bright this morning. The time change–I’d forgotten that it means getting up in the light and coming home from work in the dark. It’s also interesting how much that changes in one day. It was already getting dark before four yesterday, and was completely night by five. I don’t like the change, to be honest; it doesn’t help me get up in the morning and it makes me feel like the day’s been wasted by the time I get home because there’s no more daylight. It’s another one of the reasons I don’t like winter, to be honest, but at least down here in New Orleans it never gets super cold or snows, which does make it somewhat more bearable. I still don’t like coming home after dark, though.

Yesterday wasn’t a great day for me. I was very tired all day, despite sleeping really well, and never really felt like I had any energy. I tried to write for a while yesterday morning but got nowhere with it, which is causing me more than a little bit of stress today, and so I ended up watching a lot of television. We finished off the first season of Interview with the Vampire (more on that later), the first season of The Serpent Queen, watched the most recent Andor, and got caught up on American Horror Story. We also watched a movie called Nobody with Bob Odenkirk, which was interesting and a bit of a different approach to the usual “Dad gets vengeance” movie before finally toddling off to bed. I didn’t sleep especially well last night either–I kept waking up and had trouble falling back asleep, but it was a better night’s sleep than Saturday’s, so I will take it.

I think I had trouble sleeping Saturday night because I was so emotionally caught up in the LSU-Alabama game; I was a bundle of nerves and raw energy and anxiety the entirety of the game (which I still can’t believe we won; who would have ever thought we’d beat Alabama this year; everyone is very high, obviously, on Coach Kelly now). And now, of course, that we’ve actually beaten Alabama (first time in Baton Rouge since 2010) people are talking about LSU running the table this year and making it to the play-offs as the first-ever two loss team to get that far. One thing for sure is that LSU could certainly mess things up for the play-offs this year; who do they take if LSU does the improbable and hands Georgia its first loss of the season and wins the SEC? One loss Tennessee, who lost to Georgia and didn’t win their division? Georgia, defending national champion with one loss but didn’t win the SEC and lost to LSU? A two loss SEC champion LSU that lost to Tennessee? How do you decide between the three of them? And if you take two, as has been done occasionally in recent years, which two? This year is very reminiscent of the chaos of 2007–when a two-loss LSU team won the BCS title over Ohio State; the only two loss team since 1960 to be crowned national champions, and the only one of the championship game era (Georgia also only had two losses that year, and were highly ranked; they had a good argument but losing their division and not playing for the conference championship ruled them out–although both Alabama and Georgia have both won the national title without being SEC champions). It will be interesting. I am that Doubting Thomas still; certain we can win out the regular season by staying focused and disciplined, but I don’t know if LSU could match up with Georgia. I still think it likely that both Tennessee and Georgia are the most likely two to go to the play-offs, if the SEC winds up with two; but I also didn’t think LSU would beat Alabama this year, either.

Which shows how much I actually know, you know?

I wasn’t able to finish this before leaving the house for work this morning–I told you, the time change, combined with some insomnia and low energy days, have really messed with my mind; I was so tired this morning I even considered hitting the snooze button a third time–so here I am on my lunch break, trying to get it finished and posted so I don’t miss a day. (Being a completer can sometimes be a real problem, you know?) After I get off work today I have to run uptown and get the mail as well as pick up some groceries from the store–nothing much, just a couple of things, but might as well stop and get it over with, you know? I also hope to get some serious work on the book done tonight as well. I hate having lost the weekend, but low energy is low energy.

I did manage to read some of Wanda Morris’ new book this weekend (at the rate I’m going I won’t finish it until probably my trip to Kentucky), but also managed to read a new-to-me Daphne du Maurier short story, included in the collection Not After Midnight and Other Stories (it also includes, as every du Maurier collection does, “Don’t Look Now” and “Not After Midnight”). I’d gotten the book from eBay after finding out that it included “A Border-line Case”–which I enjoyed–as well as two other stories I’d not read, “The Way of the Cross” and “The Breakthrough.” This weekend during Georgia’s mauling of Tennessee I read “The Way of the Cross”, and really liked it. It’s long, as all du Maurier stories often tend to be, and it’s actually quite a nasty little story that spins out over the course of a twenty-four period with a small group of British tourists visiting Jerusalem and the Holy Land, most of them from a small village. Their vicar was supposed to be their tour guide for this visit; but he was taken ill and another available minister-type, who doesn’t know any of them and isn’t really completely comfortable taking over, has been asked to fill in. It’s one of du Maurier’s nastier little stories, but the reason it is so nasty is because of its brutal, unflinching honest view of the characters, none of whom really come out of the story well. What is particularly interesting is how illustrative this story is of du Maurier’s own cynical view of humanity, but her gifts make the characters so absolutely real it feels like the reader is literally looking inside their souls. The characters all have definite opinions of who and what they are; as well as their own histories. What happens throughout the course of this story is everyone is gradually humbled and made to take off their own rose-colored glasses and inevitably are forced to look at themselves and their lives very clearly–usually by overhearing two of the other characters talking about them. It’s a terrific story, and one I will definitely be revisiting at some point. (I also like they are visiting the Holy Land but definitely are not very Christian…)

And now it’s time to head back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader–and oh yes, for the record: the reaction to Jayden Daniels’ overtime touchdown and later, the two point conversion did, indeed, register on the seismograph on campus. So, it, like the 1988 Auburn game, qualifies not just as an “earthquake” game but a double earthquake game.

GEAUX TIGERS!

Thrown Down

I still am in shock. LSU beat Alabama. I didn’t even dare to hope or dream–sure, every once in a while I’d think my God, if we can pull this off–nah, it’s Alabama. Nobody gave the Tigers a chance, not even me. Yes, of course I wanted to win, hoped we could somehow pull it off (I am always slightly uncomfortable saying we in these instances, reminding myself I am not a part of the team or student body but merely a devoted, rabid fan), but never really wanted to get my hopes up. I’ve hoped and been excited so many times before when I thought LSU had a chance, only to be bitterly disappointed with the inevitable last second Alabama comeback. The Tigers hadn’t beaten Alabama in Baton Rouge since 2010, and had only beaten them once in total since 2011. Add in this would be Alabama’s second regular-season loss (which rarely happens), as well as the fact that Alabama hasn’t had two losses early in November since 2010, so, yeah, you can see why I had my doubts about my Tigers’ chances against the greatest football power of this century. What Coach Saban has done at Alabama is astonishing, remarkable, and may never ever be duplicated by any other team in college football. No one has won the national championship without having to beat Alabama since 2006, with the only exception being 2013–and Auburn, who lost the title game that year, had to beat Alabama to get there. And unlike some of the disappointed Alabama fans–and the haters who relish any loss by Saban and Alabama–I don’t think this is the end of the Alabama dynasty or the Saban juggernaut. It’s also kind of amazing that a two-loss season triggers that kind of talk–which goes to show what a standard Alabama has set for the college football world.

And now Brian Kelly owns the state of Louisiana. Any haters or doubters have been forever silenced. He beat Alabama with a team that had already lost twice, came within a whisker of losing to Auburn, and had only thirty-nine scholarship players left for our bowl game loss after last season. Jayden Daniels, our transfer quarterback, has now done something that not even Joey Burrow could accomplish with his first season at LSU: beating both Auburn and Florida on the road, and beating Alabama. I still am having trouble wrapping my mind around this, I hope you know that, Constant Reader. I fully expected to wake up this morning and find that it had all been a fever dream, that I dreamt it and the game was actually tonight. But no, LSU did beat Alabama with a two-point conversion in overtime that was the gutsiest thing I have seen this season from LSU. And they played their asses off all night.

What a fucking game, seriously.

LSU went three-and-out on their first possession. Alabama marched down the field with ease on their first possession…before Bryce Young threw an interception in the end zone to kill the drive. Alabama made it into the red zone four times in the first half, but only had six points at half-time. LSU had managed to take advantage of a short field to score the first half’s lone touchdown to lead 7-6 at the half. I couldn’t believe it as I watched from my easy chair. The defense was astonishing, making play after play and even after a big play by the Tide, would stiffen and hold. The Tigers fell behind 9-7 in the third quarter, only to score another touchdown to take a 14-9 lead into the fourth quarter. And all through the fourth quarter, as Alabama kept coming back and coming back, LSU kept fighting, clawing their way back into the game. When we got the ball back with the score tied 24-24 with twenty-one seconds left, I questioned Coach Kelly’s decision to take a knee and not try to move the ball into field goal range. Alabama got the ball first in overtime, and after about five or so plays took a 31-24 lead. This is it, I thought to myself, this is how we lose, but hey, it was a much better game than I was expecting and I am so proud of this team! And then Jayden Daniels, on LSU’s first play, scampered twenty-five yards for a touchdown and Coach Kelly decided to go for two and the win, and again, I thought, this is where we lose but I am so proud of those boys only to watch Daniels flip the ball to Mason Taylor in the corner of the end zone and to my shock, delight, and disbelief, LSU won the damned game.

As someone tweeted, This may be unexpectedly the greatest game in the history of LSU football and Tiger Stadium.

And they weren’t wrong. Even in our worst seasons, LSU has always managed some kind of big win, even in our last two seasons of mediocrity we managed to upset Florida both years, and last season we also upset Texas A&M on the last game of the season. But beating Alabama in the same season where we lost to both Florida State and Tennessee (badly) did not seem in the cards. As the Tigers have improved and gotten better, coalescing as a team while Jayden Daniels became more and more comfortable as our quarterback, I kept thinking this year we’ll probably be 9-3 at best, but look out for next year. I still think we are going to be even better next year, but I was not expecting the Tigers to be in the driver’s seat in the West division in early November with a very strong chance at making the SEC title game; if Alabama beats Mississippi next week (and Saban rarely, if ever, loses two games in a row, let alone three in a regular season, LSU can clinch the division with a win over Arkansas. If LSU wins out–including a win over Georgia in the title game–they still won’t make the play-offs, as both Georgia and Tennessee have only one loss while LSU has two, and yes, lost to Tennessee. But Tennessee lost to Georgia…I see a lot of calls for play-off expansion if the unthinkable happens and LSU is an SEC champion who gets locked out of the play-offs. This is kind of like the 1989 season, when two loss Auburn tied with one-loss Alabama and Tennessee for the conference championship.

It’s really great to be a Tiger fan this morning. GEAUX TIGERS!

Behind the Mask

Saturday here in the Lost Apartment and Paul is coming home tonight. Huzzah! Also a big day in college football down here in the South, with Georgia-Tennessee this afternoon and LSU-Alabama tonight (and the good news for Florida and Texas A&M fans is one of them has to win the game, so one team’s losing slide will temporarily stop). I have things to do this morning, lots of things to do and many miles to walk before I sleep. Last night I was very tired when I finished my day’s work; and so repaired to my easy chair with Scooter in my lap and watched Low Country, a documentary series about the Murtaugh family crimes in South Carolina. Ironically, I started watching it because I vaguely remembered hearing about the story–wife and son murdered, father shot and wounded, etc.–but I did not know the back story to all of it, which this series provides a small window into; it really only covers the recent crimes, not the criminality of the family going back almost a hundred years–but as I watched, I started seeing similarities to the book I am writing now (powerful corrupt wealthy family that basically rules a rural area as their own duchy), and ideas and things to make my own book better started riffing through my mind. One thing that urban people never get about rural areas is how much of that sort of thing goes on, especially in the South. I am really going to have to go back and dig deeper with what I’ve already done, but I am confident I can get that all worked out this weekend and then get to work on the second half of the book next week.

I slept really well again last night. I started falling asleep in my chair once I finished watching Low Country–again, worth the watch, and yes, very shocking that rural counties in the twenty-first century are still so feudal, so undemocratic, so twisted that any one person or family can be so above the law that they essentially control the justice system in the region, to the point that they get away with murder–and so went to bed early. Scooter has started sleeping with me at night, purring and cuddling, and that also helps me sleep (Paul and I have agreed that Scooter’s super power is the ability to put anyone to sleep by cuddling and purring) and I woke up feeling very settled and relaxed and rested this morning, which is terrific since I have so much to get done today (as always). But I am going to do some cleaning this morning while I do some computer clean-up and so forth (ugh, my files are such a scattered and disgusting mess, it’s not even funny; I would be better about this, of course, if Macs didn’t have that search function) and don’t plan to go anywhere today. I’ve ordered groceries to pick up for tomorrow–I also have to air up one of my tires–and other than that, I don’t plan to leave the house tomorrow either. I need to get caught up and reorganized and all of that–the usual stuff I complain about on here every day. The week went by relatively quickly, too. I read some more of the new Wanda Morris novel, which I took to bed with me but I didn’t stay awake long enough to read more than a few pages–which were fantastic. I can’t begin to talk about how delighted and exciting it is to see new perspectives, new voices, and new stories from marginalized authors. I’m just sorry it took so long to get us to this point, but this was exactly what our genre needed.

My book’s official release date is rapidly approaching, and I am trying not to get over-anxious and/or nervous about it. I need to start pushing the book more, but I am not really certain how or what to do, to be honest. I’m excited about it, of course. The reviews have thus far been pretty favorable–other than that snarky Kirkus one, but even it didn’t bother me at all, and besides, they’re known for being snarky in their reviews and always have been; I guess that’s growth of a sort. Bad reviews don’t get under my skin the way they used to when I first started doing this, you know. I tend to stay away from Goodreads and Amazon reviews–therein lies the path to madness–but my skin has thickened a lot over the years and I know what my reactions will be and why put myself into a position of any kind that might emotionally unbalance me? God knows I don’t need any help in that direction, for sure.

I also watched another documentary about gay porn, Seed Money: The Chuck Holmes Story which was very interesting. Holmes was Falcon Studios, one of the bigger and more successful brands in gay porn for a very long time, and it did give me some ideas for future projects. I will probably, most likely, keep writing Scotty books until I die (for those of you who were wondering; the next one will probably be another Carnival mystery, French Quarter Flambeaux), but I may not write anymore young adult novels. It’s not that I don’t want to or have a lot of ideas for them, but my time is limited and I want to explore other writing options and genres within crime fiction. I really am feeling the desire to work on my queer historical noirs–beginning with Chlorine–and then moving on to cover other parts of queer history from the second half of the twentieth century. Obscenity would be about gay porn; Indecency would be built around Joey Stefano’s arrest in Tampa for public indecency…and of course there would be more but that’s the original trilogy I’d want to write. They wouldn’t be connected stories–the only commonality would be the fight against oppression and repression–but I think they would be a lot of fun. I have titles for others–Beefcake, Peplum, Physique–but don’t have stories to go with those yet (although I do introduce a Bob Mizer-like character in Chlorine who could drive one of them; Peplum would be, in some ways, a sequel to Chlorine–but it wouldn’t have to be, since I’ve not really decided on the end of that book yet, but one of the possibilities does leave the path open to a sequel.

And on that note, I am going to get to work on the chores and get cleaned up and get this party started. Have a lovely Saturday, and GEAUX TIGERS!

When the Sun Goes Down

Work-at-home Friday has rolled around again, and today I get to do data entry and quality-assurance on forms until my eyes cross. I have a couple of errands to run this afternoon–but other than that, I am looking forward to a nice, peaceful day at home doing my work-at-home duties and my chores. Later on, I hope to get some good work done on the book before I repair to my easy chair with the latest Wanda Morris novel. It was a tough choice between that and the new Donna Andrews, but I am thinking since Dashing Through The Snowbirds is a Christmas tale, I may save that for Christmas reading this year–it makes the most sense, and since I generally don’t watch any Christmas movies or specials anymore (I do sometimes watch A Charlie Brown Christmas–it’s my favorite), maybe I could read Christmas-themed books and stories this year in December; maybe call it “The Twelve Reads of Christmas” or something like that. Hmmm, it’s a thought.

It really is amazing what a good night’s sleep will do for you after a few days of insomnia and exhaustion/fatigue.

Last night I didn’t sleep as deeply or as well as I did on Wednesday night. I kept waking up, partly due to Scooter’s restlessness and sometime need to let me know his outrage about something, but was always able to fall back asleep. I had to have bloodwork done this morning; I got an email from the lab telling me I had lab orders waiting for me, so I scheduled it. I got there this morning and checked in–mind you, I needed to fast, so I didn’t eat last night or have anything to drink or eat this morning before leaving the house–only to find out they didn’t, in fact, have lab orders for me. Hilariously, I am terrible about remembering to do the labs after my doctor appointments, so this last time in July I made the appointment for Labs the same week as my doctor appointment and had them done. Once they told me I didn’t have orders in, I looked in the app and saw that I had, indeed, had them done back in August. So, no need to fast overnight, no need to not have coffee before leaving, no need to leave, in fact. Heavy sigh. But I did start reading Wanda Morris’ new book while waiting to be told I didn’t really need to be there, and it’s quite marvelous already. I knew it would be–her debut novel was superb–and it’s such a delight, as always, to see exciting new voices grow and become even stronger as their career progresses.

Last evening as I relaxed before heading to bed I watched another documentary about the history of gay pornography–I’ll probably watch another one later today–which of course put me in mind of writing about that history. I really do need to focus on getting this Scotty book and the next thing I have to write finished so I can get back to Chlorine; my goal for the rest of this year and 2023 is to get these two books finished, finish two other in-progress projects, and wrap up some other things that are unfinished but need to be finished so I can cross them off the list. I may do another short story collection; I’m not sure but I think I have enough sold and/or published for another collection to actually be possible. This one, when it materialized, will be called This Town and Other Stories, because the strongest story I’ve done since the last collection was “This Town”, which was in Holly West’s anthology Murder-a-Go-Go’s. At least in my opinion, although The Affair of the Purloined Rentboy and Other Stories would probably sell better…

And of course, tomorrow is a big day for the Southeastern Conference, with division championships on the line. LSU can actually get a leg up in the West by accomplishing the gargantuan task of beating Alabama in Baton Rouge for the first time since 2010–but I don’t think that’s going to happen. Sure, it’s possible–anything is possible in college football on any given Saturday; I am sure no one would have thought Kansas State would shellack Oklahoma State the way they did last weekend–but despite all the hype chatter, I’m not getting my hopes up terribly high. Yes, I want the Tigers to win–but I don’t have any expectations, just as I really haven’t all season. I’m just delighted the program seems to be on the rise again after the last two horrible years. I certainly would have never thought LSU would be coming into the game with Alabama tied with them and Mississippi for first place in the division. And earlier in the day Georgia and Tennessee will play for the leg up in the East–which again, no one would have seen coming before the season started; no one really give Tennessee much thought as the program has been moribund since at least 2007, the last time they won their division (which also happened to be the year a two-loss LSU team won the national championship–see how you can see omens and portents in everything?). I am not a Tennessee fan by any means–I rooted for them during the Peyton Manning years because I thought he was a phenomenal athlete plus I despise Florida with every fiber of my being, but that was about it. I only root for them in non-conference games and bowls, but I am happy for their fans–just as I was happy for Georgia fans last year as they finally beat Alabama and won the national title; I always think back to what a glorious ride 2019 was for LSU fans, so it’s always nice to see a long-starved fan base finally get something they can be excited about. Pundits and fans are already comparing 2019 LSU and 2022 Tennessee…but it’s really not even the same. Sure, no one thought LSU would be as great as they were in 2019, but they were also coming off a 10-3 season. Tennessee was 7-6 last year, so it’s an even bigger turnaround for them on that level. I plan to get my writing and my errands and chores finished tomorrow morning well before the 2:30 Georgia-Tennessee kick-off, so I can spend the rest of the day nervously cleaning with the games on in the background. Paul also comes home tomorrow (yay!) so I am going to need groceries, too.

And my kitchen, as always, is a disaster area on a Friday morning, so it’s perhaps time for me to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you later or tomorrow.

Save Me

Sunday morning and I guess there’s probably a Saints game today? I am a terrible fan this year–I can’t seem to remember ever to check on the schedule to see when the games are, so maybe it’s my fault they’re having a really terrible year? (Yes, Greg, because that’s exactly how professional sports work…)

The sun is bright this morning–it was gloomy, overcast and humid yesterday; I also got rained on while running my errands. I am having my morning cappuccino, which is marvelous, and feel like I again slept extremely well again last night. Ironically, despite the same feeling yesterday morning, I succumbed to fatigue much earlier than I thought I would yesterday, which didn’t bode well for getting things done the way I had hoped and/or wanted to. So, no, I wound up not getting nearly as much done yesterday as I had originally hoped I would; but I am also still at the point where I think any progress is better than no progress so I am taking the day as a win. I did have the football games on in the background while I tried to get things done around here, and they kind of turned out the way I figured they would: Mississippi taking down Texas A&M; Tennessee embarrassing Kentucky; and Georgia made a fool out of Florida. Missouri surprised South Carolina, and Arkansas embarrassed Auburn at home. The big surprise of the day was the way Kansas State embarrassed top ten ranked Oklahoma State–no one, I think, saw that coming. But this weekend did a good job of setting up next weekend: the winner of LSU-Alabama takes control of the West, while whoever wins Georgia-Tennessee will do the same in the East. I try not to get involved in the whole “conspiracy theory” aspect of fandom, in which some controlling elite wants certain outcomes to drive their ratings, but I can’t help but think everyone at ESPN and all the college football reporters are hoping for an Alabama win, to make the Alabama-Mississippi game matter in two weeks as a “winner takes all” battle for supremacy in the West. I don’t expect LSU to win, honestly; that’s almost too much to hope for (although I do hope it happens), and all I am really hoping for is another great game, not a blow out.

I think the weather had something to do with the doldrums I was suffering from yesterday. I don’t have that same feeling this morning, but at the same time I think maybe not waking up three mornings in a row to an alarm helps make me feel more rested for some reason. It doesn’t make sense (little does, really, when it comes to my mind and my theories about my life and so forth), but I am hoping that once I get this done and the kitchen repaired a bit (the sink has dishes, things need to be put away) I can dive into working on the writing and some other things I want to get done. I’m going to take a break momentarily after finishing this to read a short story by Paul Tremblay, after which I’ll get cleaned up and get a move on with everything.

Or so I hope, at any rate.

I watched an episode of American Horror Stories before I went to bed last night–the one called “The Lake”–and it was much better than the earlier episodes I’d seen. Alicia Silverstone, Teddy Sears, and pretty young Bobby Hogan were an appealing cast, and while the story was terribly derivative (the curse of towns flooded by dams is an old trope; there’s a great German show with a similar premise–but it’s also a trope I’ve always wanted to use as well), the acting was fine and the ending–while a little like The Fog, it worked within the construct of the story and was really the only way for it to actually come to an end. It reminded me, in some ways, of another idea I had for a story a long time ago–about college kids camping out in ghost town in the Sierra mountains in California that I’ve always wanted to write–but who knows if I will ever get around to that or not? It was entertaining, though, and now of course it’s Sunday–several of the shows we watch drop episodes on Sundays, but I can’t watch any of them until Paul gets home. Heavy sigh. Although I think tonight I’ll rewatch Halloween–the original. It is, after all, the seminal slasher movie and the one that kicked off the slasher craze of the late 1970’s/early 1980’s (along with Friday the 13th).

On the other hand, one can never go wrong with Scream, for that matter.

Well, I can figure out what I am going to watch later, right? It’s not like it is of the utmost importance to figure this out right now, either.

Or maybe I’ll watch a horror movie I’ve never seen before–there were so many in their heyday that I’ve not seen them all, like Terror Train or Prom Night–then again, on the other hand, there are so many it’s entirely possible I’ve seen some of them and forgotten that I have, as well. My memory is no longer trustworthy, after all–as I am finding out while writing this book–which makes me wish I’d written more things down over the years or been more faithful to keeping a journal; I’ve never been as faithful to a journal as I have been to this blog, for example. Yet another reason why I don’t write a memoir or many personal essays; I don’t trust my memory, and I know I have most likely revised my own personal history to make myself more of the hero of the story than I should be–it’s something we all do, really; it’s also how we perceive things, through our own lenses with all of our foibles and miscues and flaws helping to interpret and record things in that great back-up hard drive inside our skulls. We are all the heroes of our own story, even if we are the villain in someone else’s.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow morning.

Welcome to the Room

Saturday!!!

Well, Paul left yesterday and suddenly I find myself living alone in this enormous apartment. It’s weird how that works. I guess Paul just is a very large personality or something like that? It’s just weird to me how the apartment can seem so different while he’s gone. I do sometimes, as I am morbid by nature, sometimes think when he goes away like this and I get bored and/or lonely and/or feel like I’m rattling around in this big huge empty space, well, if you outlive him this will be your future and I’m not quite sure how I feel about that? I know I don’t like thinking in those terms, but as the years pass and more things happen and we have different things happening to us health-wise and so forth, you do start getting a stronger sense of your own mortality, whether you like it or not. I always thought I would die relatively young, so I always feel like I am already living on bonus time I wasn’t meant to have–and yet, I keep going on somehow. It’s a complete mystery to me.

Sometimes I feel like Ishmael.

LSU has the weekend off like they always do the week before the Alabama game, so there’s no reason for me to have the television on for much today. Oh, sure, I won’t be able to resist having Georgia-Florida (“The World’s Biggest Cocktail Party”) game on, as I am expecting Georgia to humiliate the Gators (sorry, UF fans, I very rarely–if ever–want your team to win, but I am sure you return the favor and want LSU to lose every game they play as well), and I am not really all that sure who else is playing today, to be honest–I know Mississippi is at Texas A&M, which is a tough one for me to chose a favorite in; although I think I am going to have to lean towards Mississippi a bit–but again, my plan is to work this morning, run my errands (including making groceries–not much, but some), and then come home to clean and organize the apartment. I’m also going to take my laptop upstairs as well as a flash drive so I can use Paul’s computer if I need to write (and don’t want to use the laptop), and spend the rest of the day cleaning upstairs and trying to get things under control somewhat more up there. One can hope, at any rate.

I like my new espresso maker! I tried it out yesterday morning and it worked wonderfully. I think I may go back to having one in the mornings before I head into the office; that bold shot of caffeine certainly did its trick yesterday morning. I am currently having a homemade cappuccino as I type this, and it’s quite delicious, if I do say so myself. Having one yesterday didn’t affect last night’s sleep, as I feared would turn out to be the case. I slept great last night, despite being alone in the bed–Scooter helped a lot, as a cuddly purr-kitty–and I feel very rested and well this morning. Which is good, because I have a very big day planned here around the Lost Apartment–cleaning and writing and organizing–and I also have those errands to get to.

I must confess that after my work-at-home duties were completed yesterday I was terribly lazy. I didn’t write a word, which is shameful–I was mentally fatigued, plus off-balance because it was my first Paul-free evening–and so I rewatched Nicholas Roeg’s film of Daphne du Maurier’s Don’t Look Now on HBO MAX. I highly recommend the movie and the story; it’s really one of my all-time favorites, and the film does an excellent job with the story–far more so than Hitchcock did with her story The Birds (if you like Hitchcock’s film, you really need to read the original story, which is vastly superior in my opinion). I also finished my annual reread of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, which as always was completely captivating. I cannot get over marveling at what an incredibly lyrical writer Jackson was, or how her prose just sings from the page while magnificently creating a morbid, melancholy tone that is, in and of itself, haunting. (I was thinking about watching the Netflix adaptation of Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, another one of my favorites; Merricat Blackwood is one of the great fictional characters of the twentieth century in my opinion) I may dive into some Paul Tremblay short stories this weekend since I don’t have the time to finish reading another Halloween Horror novel, but tonight I may rewatch the original, classic film of Halloween again. I think I do owe it to myself to watch some horror films leading up to Halloween, don’t you think? Don’t Look Now, while not quite horror, certainly does fit the bill somewhat for my mini-film festival…I wonder if Robert Wise’s The Haunting is free to stream anywhere? That is probably my favorite horror film of all time–it scared me shitless when I was a small child, and still does to this day; skip the execrable remake, but the Netflix series adaptation is quite good, actually; the episode called “The Bent-neck Lady” is one of the best episodes of television ever filmed, in my opinion. I also want to spend some time today revisiting what I’ve written so far for Mississippi River Mischief to get an outline done and a character list, which I really need to get done, and I also plan to revisit another project I’m working on and am quite far behind on now.

I do have some laundry to do, some clean dishes to put away, and of course the floors always need to be done. I am going to spend the rest of this morning cleaning the kitchen and making a list for my mini-grocery making today; there are a couple of things I need to pick up–nothing much, really–and of course I have to drop off yet another box of books to the library sale. I also need to put air in one of my tires, and ugh, I have so much to do before my trip home for Thanksgiving. Heavy heaving sigh–sometimes it doesn’t help to look ahead, does it?

And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close and head into the spice mines. Happy Saturday, Constant Reader, and may your day be as lovely as you are.

When I See You Again

It’s a work at home Friday and Paul is getting ready to head out to the airport. Heavy heaving sigh. While alone time is something I can always appreciate, it doesn’t take more than a day or two before I start missing him. But I have a lot to keep me busy, so if I just focus and work my way down the to-do list, I should be able to keep busy enough to not miss him while at the same time getting a lot of things done–always a plus, especially given how behind I am on this book–but a Gregalicious at rest tends to stay at rest, so the big thing for me is going to be staying motivated.

Ugh, I hate when Paul goes away.

I was tired again yesterday when I got off work and came home, so spent some time organizing and doing mindless chores once I got home until Paul got home from work. By the time he’d gotten home I’d already finished the chores and given in to Scooter’s demands for a lap to sleep in, and was watching the latest iteration of ESPN’s show Saturdays Down South, which of course is a history of the Southeastern Conference. This episode was for the decade 2010-2019, and while it naturally focused on the Alabama supremacy, it was fun revisiting some of that football history from that decade: Auburn’s runs in 2010 and 2013 (the “Kick Six” win against Alabama included); the runs for both Mississippi and Mississippi State in 2014 that ended disappointingly but had them both ranked in the Top Three at the same time (until they lost to LSU and Alabama, respectively, on the same day), and of course ending with the incredible LSU season in 2019. Much as I would love to climb on board this year’s LSU hype train, I’m reserving that excitement until a week from tomorrow. Alabama is the stumbling block as it always is (only one national champion since 2006 was able to claim the title without having to beat Alabama–hence The Alabama Supremacy), and even the game being in Tiger Stadium means nothing. LSU has beaten Nick Saban exactly four times (2007, 2010, 2011, 2019) with three of those games being in Tuscaloosa. LSU hasn’t beaten Alabama in Baton Rouge since 2010–twelve years.

So, yes, I am a huge LSU fan but I am also realistic. I’ll be cheering for the Tigers, you bet, and I want them to win…but I am not expecting them to win. I am hoping for it to be a great game.

After Paul got home we caught up on American Horror Story: NYC, which weren’t as interesting to me as the first two episodes. In other words, as we get deeper into the season the plot is beginning to derail a little as so often happened with seasons of the show. However, since the story is set so strongly in the gay community of the early 1980’s, I’ll keep watching. I somehow always manage to keep watching this show (Double Feature we bailed out of during the aliens second feature; we also gave up on Hotel but somehow managed to watch both Roanoke and Apocalypse all the way to the bitter end) despite how far off the rails some of these seasons inevitably wind up going–it’s the completist in me, I think–although I feel pretty confident we’ve also given up on A Friend of the Family as well. (Paul: “This could have been a two-hour movie; it didn’t need to be an ongoing series.”) I am now at a loss for what to watch with Paul gone–I can’t watch anything we’re watching together, or something we’d watch together–but I think I am going to revisit the latest Nancy Drew series; I watched the debut episode and kind of was intrigued by it, but Paul wasn’t interested so never went back to it. I checked yesterday and was stunned to see three seasons have aired, which is cool. I hope The Hardy Boys also gets another season, in all honesty; I enjoyed the show. Having grown up on the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, I am always interested to see how the characters/stories get adapted for a modern audience (and belonging to several fan groups on social media for the books is equally interesting, particularly in how imprisoning and limiting so many people can make of nostalgia for something from their childhoods), just as I was interested in seeing Riverdale’s approach to the Archie characters.

I wound up going to be relatively early as I started falling asleep in my chair while watching AHS: NYC last night (I will probably have to rewatch the latest one because I kept dozing off; I also rewatched Andor last night for the same reason before Paul got home). I also got a new espresso maker yesterday which I am dying to try out this morning. I also want to finish my reread of The Haunting of Hill House before moving on to something by Paul Tremblay. I didn’t do well with my “October horror reading month”–I didn’t read very much this month at all, which is shameful, especially since I got Wanda Morris’ new book this week as well–can’t wait to dig into that.

Sigh. Am I being overly ambitious with my plans to get things caught up while Paul is out of town? It’s entirely possible, and I could possibly be setting myself up for a terrible disappointment, but there it is.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.

Skies the Limit

I finished my reread of ‘salem’s Lot (entry to follow at some point) and really enjoyed it, as much as I have every time I’ve reread it. It’s a marvel that the book was King’s second published novel, and while yes, it was, like Carrie, horror–but it was a completely different kind of book, in style, tone, voice and structure. How can anyone have read King’s first two books and not seen the rise of a major new force in publishing? The pacing is stunning as well; the first act is kind of charming and meanders here and there, introducing us to the characters and the town as well as letting us know something bad is coming, and it just keeps picking up steam, faster and faster, until the last hundred pages or so just fly. The ending was left open to a sequel–I remember reading once that King had written the opening of a sequel, or had the idea or something–but it never happened.

Probably just as well.

I also started my reread of The Haunting of Hill House and as ever, am completely captivated by the power of that first chapter and Shirley Jackson’s writing style.

Yesterday’s LSU game was quite fun, if stressful. As always, they got off to a relatively slow start by playing a little loose and sloppy at first; early in the second quarter LSU fell behind 17-3 because of miscues and mistakes–it easily could have been 17-14–but then the team found it’s rhythm and went on a 42-3 tear against a 7-0 6th ranked Mississippi team (who, to be fair, really hadn’t played the meat of the schedule so far; their biggest win had been Auburn, who is floundering this season) to win the game handily 45-20, and to look pretty impressive while doing so. The last time Mississippi came to Baton Rouge 7-0 and in the top ten (#3, actually) was in 2014 when an underachieving LSU beat them 10-7 (apparently, LSU is 1-5 against Mississippi when they are ranked in the Top 10–is it any wonder they hate us so? Add in to that the fact that LSU’s most legendary and iconic play of all time–Billy Cannon’s Run–was against them, and you see where their antipathy comes from. I’ll be the first to admit, I wasn’t a fan of Brian Kelly’s or his fire, but he is 100% turning this program around from the depths of the last two seasons and it’s entirely possible LSU could go 9-3 this season–maybe even 10-2 (I daren’t to dream yet; a win over Alabama this year seems almost too much to hope for; but if it happens Brian Kelly will immediately be crowned King of Louisiana) but hearing people talking about SEC titles and play-off games this year seems to be a bit premature–but watch out for LSU next year. Jayden Daniels is really quite a player–I wasn’t completely sold on him, either, to be honest, but he’s really turned out to be quite the player; fun to watch, and getting better and more seasoned and acclimated as the season goes on. Seriously, next year LSU will be a contender for sure.

And yes, it’s petty, but I also kind of enjoyed that Texas A&M lost to South Carolina last night, and good for USC, really (I started to write “good for the Cocks” because I am ten years old; but in fairness they call themselves the Cocks). Petty because they wanted Jimbo Fisher at LSU, and now having seen what he can do with all the money and resources behind him at A&M? Yeah, glad you chose College Station instead of Baton Rouge, Jimbo. Have fun with the Aggie alumni, and let us know how that goes. I can’t believe they wanted him so bad that his buy-out had no restrictions…they are either going to be stuck with him for a very long or getting him out is going to be extremely costly. Again, oh, well, too bad so sad. You had some success at Florida State, but they were already circling the drain before you bailed on them, Jimbo…and this is yet another year A&M won’t be in the SEC title game. Oh, well.

Another rather interesting football season. Tulane also won, so they are 7-1 now, too. Good on you, Wave!

I feel very rested and relaxed this morning. I was stressed during that first quarter of the LSU game, so rather than sitting in my chair stewing in my worry and letting myself get worked up (I literally sometimes get so into games that I have to remind myself, Dude, it’s a sporting event, not the end of the world) so I decided to use that nervous energy to clean the house and work on the book while I watched the game. I planned some of the next act of the book, so I can get some chapters written in the meantime, and I also pruned the books; did some more laundry; did the dishes; and cleaned the floors. I also did some filing that needed doing. Paul had some errands to run in the afternoon–he didn’t check the game time when he made appointments–so he didn’t get home until the fourth quarter, and then we watched the short programs from Skate America, which I’d recorded. The young American “quadgod” Ilia Malinin is definitely a rising star, as is Isabeau Levito, the young American woman who looks like she’ll be our best and most successful since at least Sasha Cohen, if not Michelle Kwan (although achieving more than Kwan is unlikely for any other skater). Today there’s not a Saints game, and I am going to finish this and do some things before diving deep into my book to get it going again. Paul will be gone next weekend, and LSU is on a bye week, so I have literally no excuse next weekend for not being highly productive and getting caught up on things–I still have to empty the dishwasher and fold clothes; and I want to make white bean chicken chili today as well–it’s getting to be soup and chili season in New Orleans, and I do love this time of year and would even more if it didn’t get dark so early.

I’m glad I feel rested this morning, to be sure. Hopefully I will be able to motivate myself to work my way down and through my to-do list. But I am not getting there by doing this, so I am going to bid you farewell now, Constant Reader, and head back into the spice mines.

Seven Wonders

If I live to see the seven wonders, I’ll make a path to the rainbow’s end…

It’s 49 degrees here in New Orleans this morning–it could have been worse, and was predicted to be worse–so I can’t complain too much. It’s chilly inside the apartment this morning, but I have on my sweats and a stocking cap and feel okay. I didn’t want to get out of the warmth of the bed this morning–who can blame me–but I do feel somewhat rested this morning, which is always an enormous plus. I managed to not feel exhausted yesterday, so I managed to reconfigure Chapter Five so it is no longer a steaming pile of crap and now feel like I can move on to Chapter Six. Huzzah! Progress, Constant Reader, we are making progress at long last and it feels marvelous. We also watched this week’s Reboot (seriously, y’all, this show is hilarious and marvelous and you should be watching) and started the new season of The Vow on HBO–remember the NXIVM cult? They got a second season, which is going to be interesting as it covers the trials and has interviews with some of those higher-ups who pled guilty…but I am not seeing the cult leaders who finally woke up and brought them down as heroic, frankly. I have mixed feelings about them, to be honest; when they finally turned they really turned, but they were also involved for years and recruited lots of people–especially women–to the group, so I don’t know. There’s something to be said for atonement, I suppose, which is one of those esoteric philosophical questions about crime and punishment and our legal system (I’ve always felt conflicted, for example, about the sex offenders’ registry; I totally get why the neighborhood should know a convicted sex offender has moved into the neighborhood but at the same time it feels like a continuation of their punishment–either you do the time and are rehabilitated or you’re not…this conflict of fairness in my mind is what led me to write my story “Neighborhood Alert”).

I actually listened to my Sisters in Crime podcast interview with Julie Hennrikus (I tend to avoid listening to recordings of my voice, as I don’t like how I sound) for a change, and started to wonder about this distaste I have for hearing my voice. I don’t sound to myself anything like I sound on recordings, so for one thing it’s jarring to my sense of self (“that’s what other people hear when I talk?”), kind of like photographs, and there’s a bit of an effeminacy to my voice, I think–or that I hear–that makes me uncomfortable–and as I listened last night (it’s an interesting conversation, and Julie is a marvelous interviewer) I began to wonder why I hate the sound of my voice so much. There’s nothing wrong with sounding effeminate, so why does it get under my skin the way it does? It makes little to no sense, and it’s definitely something to do with the self-loathing I developed as a child from being an outsider. But after I started listening, after a while I stopped cringing as my voice came out of the computer speakers and started paying attention. Julie is a marvelous conversationalist/interviewer, and I felt like I didn’t come across as a pompous and arrogant fool who doesn’t really know what he’s talking about, which is also a plus. (I’ve always felt that authors should be good interviews, since they are story-tellers; the interviewer’s job is to prod the subject into telling an entertaining story–which I think is another part of it; I tend to think my life and my writing processes and anecdotes aren’t terribly interesting, which again goes to the core of self-deprecation and humility that I am trying to break as it is not only counter-intuitive but it’s a bad quality for an author to have…I am always so afraid I’m going to sound arrogant and ungrateful that I tend to go too far the other way.)

But now that I am working on my aversion to hearing my voice, I can listen to the other podcast i recently recorded with Ricky Grove, about My Cousin Rachel, you can listen by clicking here if you like. I am actually now looking forward to listening myself–now that I am getting over my aversion to my own voice–and listening to myself more regularly will help me conquer that aversion, yank it out by the roots, as it were. Working on improving myself will clearly never stop until I breathe my last, will it?

I’m hoping to have a productive day, really. I feel rested, my brain isn’t feeling fatigued, and I feel more alert than I did earlier this week. I need to get some life-function things to do (make sure all bills are listed on calendar; remake my to-do list) and tonight after work I am hoping to be able to sit down and bang out Chapter Six, as well as perhaps read some more into ‘salem’s Lot while I wait for Paul to get home from work. I think I’ve pretty much decided not to make the trip to Boston for Crime Bake–flying back and two weeks later having to drive to Kentucky sounds exhausting and like way too much for me already–plus with the book deadline looming over everything, that makes it less promising to take a second trip before the deadline, alas–so it’s probably smarter for me to go ahead and cancel that trip…but I may keep the time off I’ve requested so I can work on the book. Hmmm, decisions, decisions. But I also need to be able to take time off to go to New York in January for my last hurrah for Mystery Writers of America…so who knows? Maybe I should just cancel the vacation requests and work? I don’t know. I hate making decisions because I am so certain that I will make the wrong one…

See how insidious that self-deprecating self-loathing thing is? It pops up everywhere. Why can I never make a decision that either makes sense for me or with confidence that I’m making the right one? Sigh, I don’t know and probably never will, I suppose.

And on that cheery note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader and I will talk to you again tomorrow.