Category: Alabama

When I’m Sixty-four

For the first time in decades, I am not taking my birthday off.

That’s why I am up at this ungodly hour, swilling down coffee and consuming coffee cake like it’s going out of style. I need to conserve my PTO, because I am going to the panhandle (barring unforeseen circumstances) for a week with my dad in October after a weekend in Alabama for Dad’s and Mom’s birthdays. I also have to take some time off during Bouchercon–there’s no way I can work all day and then host Noir at the Bar that Thursday, and probably not going to be able to do much work that Friday, either. I think I’ve managed to get it all planned out so that I will have just enough vacation time left to do the family thing in October, and then let things start building back up again for the new year. It’s going to be weird going to work on my birthday–I generally take the day off because I don’t need or want the attention that comes with it–but I will survive, I am sure.

Sixty. Four.

Christ on the cross.

I never planned for my future because I never thought I would have one. When I was a kid, I was certain I wasn’t going to have much of an adult life; I always had nightmares about not only dying but how I would die; either in a car accident, or a fall from a high place. This is why I am always, to this day, a little bit tense when I’m in a car and a LOT tense when I am the passenger. In my early twenties, I thought I was going to seroconvert and die from AIDS–why would I ever think that I would survive that pandemic? The next thing I knew I had somehow made it to fifty, then sixty–and now I am sixty-four, with another milestone birthday just a year in my future, should I make it till then. I am woefully unprepared for retirement, so most likely will continue to work for another few years to at least try to get my debt down to a manageable place. Ha ha ha ha, I’m so adorable, aren’t I?

I guess the ship has sailed on me dying young, hasn’t it?

But it’s been a pretty good life thus far, I have to say. I’ve written and published a shit ton of work, which can never be taken away from me, and neither can the awards I’ve either won or made the shortlist for…how many authors never make a shortlist of any kind? But the childhood conditioning that celebrating myself and things I’ve accomplished is a hubristic tempting of fate; how many stories and myths and fables are there about hubristic humans who anger a god? Like I often say, I live in the city I love with the man I love doing work that I love. All of my dreams came true, no matter what happens in the future.

My sixties haven’t been easy on me, and I don’t have the energy I used to have so recovery from physical, emotional, and professional blows doesn’t happen as fast as it used to; but I’m still pretty pleased and happy with my life. I try not to worry about future outcomes that I can’t control, and can only prepare for the things I can. If my thirties were about getting myself mentally healthy so I could have the life I wanted, and the forties were about getting started in my career and the fifties were about getting further along and getting better as a writer, my sixties have been a time of revisiting and rethinking my past, finally getting to understand myself and where a lot of my neuroses stem from. The anxiety medication has helped me enormously in that regard, too. Realizing how emotionally crippling my anxiety was when I was a minor also has enabled me to remember, and those memories aren’t painful anymore because so much of my misery was directly attributable to said anxiety.

So now I am sixty-four. I am older than my grandparents were throughout my childhood, which is also a staggering realization. It’s also weird to think that I was born sixteen years after the end of World War II, the country was sinking into the depths of the Cold War, and President Kennedy hadn’t even been in office for a full year yet. I never imagined what it would be like to be this age, mainly because I, as stated earlier, never thought I would live this long. I’m trying not to be that old person–you know, “When I was your age” or “We used to call it” and that sort of thing, because no one really wants to hear it. I’ve seen a lot in my life, witnessed all kinds of events (the Challenger explosion, 9/11, Watergate hearings, on and on), and lived through all kinds of things. I’ve lived in Alabama, Chicago, Kansas, California, Houston, Tampa, Minneapolis, and New Orleans. I went to two high schools in different states, and two colleges in different states. I went to Italy for a week over ten years ago. I’ve had so many jobs, but being a writer/sexual health counselor were the only things that took with me.

Life’s been good to me so far.

After work, I am going to head home and just hang out with Sparky. If I had to hazard a guess, Paul will probably get us Hoshun for dinner tonight. But I got my vacuum cleaner last week, and that’s all I really cared about.

Happy birthday to me! And may my next year be a lovely one!

The only picture of my face as a baby, my first day home from the hospital.

Spirit in the Sky

I have written another Alabama story! It will be in the Crippen & Landru anthology Double Crossing Van Dine, which you can preorder right here. My story is called “The Spirit Tree,” which was a lot of fun to write, and am very excited that the anthology will release later this month/early September. I again got an editing credit (along with Donna Andrews and Art Taylor, both of whom do a lot more work than I do on these books), and I do absolutely love that cover.

Isn’t this a great cover?

Turn right on Simmons Road and in a half mile, your destination will be on the right.

Tom Forrester slowed his official State Bureau of Investigation SUV and glanced in the rearview mirror. Nothing behind him but blacktop state highway back to the S curve he’d just negotiated. He flipped on the turn signal and made the turn onto a back road. It stretched out before him, a narrow expanse of red dirt and gravel down to the bottom of a hollow and climbing back up the other side. He was getting a headache and wished again he’d asked for someone to come with him. He’d never been to Corinth County before, hadn’t even driven through it. Yes, it was in his district, but it was remote. At least an hour to the nearest interstate. Outsiders had to want to come to Corinth County to get there.

It amazed him that there were still these random remote counties all over the deep South, seemingly untouched by the outside world.

But the county seat, for all its population of about three thousand, had a Wal-Mart and a McDonalds, and almost every house or trailer he’d seen from the road had a satellite dish either in the yard or affixed to the building. Was anything truly remote anymore?

The road wasn’t wide enough for two cars, so he hoped he didn’t meet anyone coming from the other direction. A cloud of red dust followed closely behind the vehicle. At the bottom of the hollow there was a small stream flowing through corrugated iron beneath the pitiful road. And he noticed a rusty barbed wire fence running along the front of the pine forest on the left side, caught a glimpse of a rusted tin roof surrounded by overgrowth.

It looked…familiar.

Not a bad start, right?

The anthology also has an impressive table of contents:

You can find Van Dine’s commandments (there are twenty) here, if you want to look them up.

Mine was: The problem of the crime must be solved by strictly naturalistic means. Such methods for learning the truth as slate-writing, ouija-boards, mind-reading, spiritualistic séances, crystal-gazing, and the like, are taboo. A reader has a chance when matching his wits with a rationalistic detective, but if he must compete with the world of spirits and go chasing about the fourth dimension of metaphysics, he is defeated ab initio.

So, yes, like I did in the last anthology of this nature that I was in, chose supernatural/occult as my way of breaking said rule. I’ve done this before, of course, in novels; two subgenres I prefer are crime and horror–and I do love crossing/blurring the lines between the two of them.

Several years ago (it may have been last year; my grasp of time isn’t the best anymore) I read a book called Salvation on Sand Mountain, about snake-handlers in north Alabama (I’d also watched a documentary called Alabama Rattlesnake) which reminded me of a bit of country magic. When I was a little boy–a very little boy–I remember visiting someone in Alabama–and there was a small tree beside the front porch, with bottles slipped over the ends and catching the sun in colorful flashes and making tinkling sounds when the wind blew the branches together. I asked, and was told it was a ‘spirit tree,’–the sound of the bottles kept evil spirits and ghosts out of the house. I’d forgotten about it until I read it in the book, and I remembered it all very clearly.

So, I sat down and wrote an opening scene, in which a state investigator is going to a crime scene, and when he gets there, there’s a spirit tree beside the porch. I had no idea what to do with the story–how to finish it, who was murdered and why, etc.–and it went into the files. When I was asked for a story (and a by-line credit) for this anthology, I looked for the supernatural rule, claimed it, and pulled out “The Spirit Tree.”

Yes, it’s another Corinth County story, like Bury Me in Shadows and “Smalltown Boy” and “The Ditch,” not connected to the others by anything other than location, really, but it’s location is pretty much everything!

Hope you enjoy it–and the rest of the contributors are exceptional writers, so I know you’ll enjoy theirs, too! What are you waiting for? PRE ORDERS ARE ALWAYS WELCOMED!

Pour Some Sugar on Me

Thursday and my last day in the office for the week. I slept well again last night–didn’t want to get out from under my pile of blankets this morning, yet again–and we also had an amazing thunderstorm last night. Lightning was very close, the thunder rolled for what seemed like forever, and twice the power fluttered on and off before I went to bed. I had a good day at work yesterday–got a lot done there–and picked up the mail on the way home and there was plenty of it, too. This weather is the return of the system that was supposed to flood us this past weekend; it made a U-turn and basically came back. There’s no flood watch or anything, so it’s not as scary this time around, methinks. I did some chores when I got home before my usual catch-up on the news, and once Paul got home we started watching Untamed. We were on our second episode of the evening when the power blinked out then back on the first time, and it took forever for the wireless server to come back on line–Netflix is always slow to load, too–so we gave up for the evening. We’ll probably finish the show in another night or two, and then will have to find something new to watch again. Huzzah.

I am also still reeling a bit from how much my bi-monthly medication costs (#madness). It’s almost two hundred thousand dollars per year. Granted, that also includes the cost of the injection device that I have to attach to myself every eight weeks (I thought it was four; this is much better on me). It is on its way, and should be arriving sometime Friday at the postal service, so I can pop it into the refrigerator and keep it there until I need it in September. I have to go to the service on Friday anyway; I received the title pages for Double Crossing Van Dine anthology to sign (my co-editors, Donna Andrews and Art Taylor, have already signed them; I’m last to go) for the clothbound edition of the anthology. My story “The Spirit Tree,” is another Alabama story, for the record; yet another return to Corinth County! So one of the things I need to do either tonight or tomorrow morning is sign them.

Apparently I need to watch last night’s episode of South Park? Social media is completely abuzz with clips and general hilarity about this new episode, which targets Dumble-dumb. Something to stream while bonding with my precious Sparky tonight, at any rate. I also need to check my to-do list as well as make a more comprehensive one for the weekend. I have plenty of work to do at home tomorrow, of course, and lots of chores and writing and editing and cleaning to do around that, as always. I am trying to get my email inbox cleaned out, and I also need to do some studying on things. I don’t think I have to sign up for Medicare before I actually retire or stop working, according to what I have read, which is kind of a relief; I’d rather not deal with that frustrating red tape until I actually have to, you know?

Insurance shouldn’t be this crazy and complicated and irritating, frankly.

Neither should life.

I also want to get another newsletter out–either about the recent trend by gymbros to build up a beautiful butt1, or my one about the kids’ series featuring Vicki Barr, (pre-feminist) stewardess! I also owe a gazillion emails…sigh.

And on that note, it’s off to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I will be back in the morning.

The Temple of Poseidon
  1. So much of a gym trend that Men’s Health published an article about it! ↩︎

No More Words

Monday morning and I have an ophthalmologist appointment before I head into work. I slept super-great again last night, but didn’t really want to get up this morning. The appointment is pretty far out for me in Kenner (near Clearview), and I have no idea what time I will get to work. This is to check me for Stargardt disease, which my sister has and is genetic. I also have errands to run after work tonight–post office, make some groceries–before I come home to an apartment and all my chores. I was very tired yesterday–drained from the trip and all the driving over three days or so–and was able to only get some filing and organizing done, as well as ordered groceries for delivery and put them all away. The sink has dishes in it, there are dishes in the dishwasher that need to be put away, and the floors are always the worst. If I can stand it, I can do a bit every night before really focusing on it Friday, which is a holiday I don’t feel much like celebrating or acknowledging this year, given the dismantling of everything since January. I also have to get the bills figured out–I am terribly confused about these medical bills I am getting–and have a shit load of writing to do.

We started watching Olympo, a Spanish series about an athletic training school, and it’s quite fun. Not as fun as Elité, but we’re also only three episodes in. The big mystery of season one seems to be the use of performing enhancing drugs, with a swimmer collapsing and another swimmer determined to find out what’s going on. There’s also queer content; both gay and sapphic, which is very fun. Naturally, the cast is all gorgeous young Spaniards, which makes it very pleasant to watch. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I need to finish reading my current three reads (Summerhouse, Sing Me a Death Song, The Crying Child) before moving on to my next three. I also need to get back writing again; it seems like months since I’ve worked on anything, which is silly–I worked on writing last week, but the trip makes everything seem like it all happened an eternity ago, which is one of those weird time things I’m becoming more and more aware of the longer I live. I also need to clean out my email inbox, pay some bills, and pull my life back together–I’ve not been on top of things since I got sick after Saints and Sinners, really. Definitely need to. make a to-do list and a grocery list before heading out this morning, and maybe do some things around here before leaving for the appointment.

I did go down a research rabbit hole on Youtube again yesterday, though–more 1970s research, and I was also remembering the Bicentennial and how it really started overpowering the zeitgeist after President Nixon resigned and was pardoned. Next year is the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence; I am a little surprised that it’s not as big of a deal, or even a deal at all, so far. But we were a different country in 1976 than we are now, aren’t we? I was still in high school, we’d just moved to Kansas, and the Olympics were coming up, too–Montreal and Nadia Comaneci–so that was a busy summer for me, and one of major changes for one Gregalicious. (If you think it wasn’t a major change to go from a suburban Chicago high school to a rural one in Kansas, think again.) I also have Alabama stories bouncing through my head since I drove home on Saturday.

But now I have to get back to the spice mines and make that to-do list before cleaning up for the appointment and a short day in the office. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow as the month changes and the summer ratchets everything up even hotter than it was in June.

It’s going to be a looooong summer….

For All Tomorrow’s Lies

Alabama.

I love Alabama, despite the way the state continually disappoints me. It’s such a beautiful place, with its kudzu and towering pines and broad rivers and that startlingly gorgeous red dirt. (Red dirt is often used to symbolize poverty and ignorance and bigotry…but it’s also gorgeous. I’d much rather have red dirt on my car or my shoes than regular black dirt any time.) Driving through the state I am always amazed at the strange range of country homes, everything from crumbling abandoned wrecks to expensive looking McMansions to trailers of all kinds and all conditions, the creeks and mimosa trees and hollers, sometimes filled with out of control kudzu (kudzu has fascinated me since I was a child) and sometimes just bushes and flowers and wild blackberry bushes growing out of control. It always inspires me when I go back to Alabama, reconnecting with my roots and where I am actually from, or, as we say in New Orleans, where my people are from. I also find myself spending a lot of time visiting graveyards where relatives are buried, while my father once again explains who many of them are (I love visiting the graves of my mother’s paternal grandparents; there’s a picture of them posing with four of their children and they are one of the most gorgeous couples I’ve ever seen; their daughters look just like my mother–and by extension, kind of like me–and seeing that picture always pleases me so) and stories about them, and I know he enjoys remembering the family history while passing it along to me. I enjoy the stories of the county, too; as we drive around the backroads and past places from his and my youth (“we took this road home from Auburn when you were just three months old, remember it?”–Dad humor, sure, but I love every bit of it) and I marvel at it all, hoping that it’s all being imprinted on my faded and dying memory. I really do want to write more about Alabama (which is what I say every time I get back from there, isn’t it?), and yeah, I do need to get back to writing, don’t I?

And some of that county and family history? Let’s just say the county is a lot more like Peyton Place than anyone from there would care to admit.

Dad also brought me a case of Grape Crush in bottles, which was so sweet and thoughtful (you can only get cans here, so Dad always brings me some from Kentucky and yes, I am very spoiled and always have been). We drove down to visit my aunt and uncle (another seven hours total in the car on Friday), so am very worn out this morning, now that I am back home; the drive back yesterday was nice but was very tired by the time I got home. I did listen to John Copenhaver’s Hall of Mirrors in the car (more on that later), but spent the evening watching My Mother Jayne, which was very well done (I always have been interested in Jayne Mansfield) and we really enjoyed. After that, I got started unpacking and putting things away and yes, I really do regret not thoroughly cleaning the apartment before I left on Wednesday. So instead of chilling out and relaxing today, I’ll be cleaning and making groceries (ordering them, at any rate), and hopefully reading and writing some.

It occurred to me last night that I didn’t get to all the queer books I wanted to read for Pride Month, and it also occurred to me that just because it’ll no longer be Pride Month doesn’t mean that I can’t read queer books; that’s the trap of having these celebratory months–I do not only read Black authors in February, after all, so why do I only focus on queer work in June?1 But I am glad I caught that I’d not finished Hall of Mirrors–and I know how it happened. I was reading it and about to go on a trip, and I always keep the books I am reading and the ones that are on-deck on the end table near my chair. I’d gotten down several potential books to take for the trip, and after I packed the books I decided to take I put the others back, and I must have reshelved Hall of Mirrors then; I was convinced I’d read it until before this trip, when I couldn’t remember how it ended and Audible suggested it–and when I got the book down from the shelves again there was a bookmark in it marking my place. Shamefully I downloaded it to my Audible, and decided to listen to it on this trip. There were three chapters left when I pulled up to the house; I finished it after watching My Mother Jayne…and then I fell asleep in my chair.

What a glorious night’s sleep I enjoyed last night, too! And it’s always nice to be home with Paul and Sparky. I didn’t make myself sick on the trip, either–remembering to have protein drinks and to take my pills and rehydrate properly. It was hot as fuck up there, too.

But I am going to bring this to a close, so I can get things done and groceries ordered and prepare for the week. I have an ophthalmologist appointment first thing tomorrow morning that requires me to drive out to (shudder) Kenner before I go into the office…and of course, Friday is the 4th of July so I have a three day weekend this week, too. Huzzah!

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Enjoy your Sunday, Constant Reader, as I intend to enjoy mine, and I’ll be back in the morning.

Staircase in the step pyramid of Pharaoh Djoser at Saqqarah
  1. I don’t, but it seems like I put a lot more pressure on myself to do during Pride. ↩︎

The Metro

Wednesday, and in about five hours I’ll be heading out on I-10 East to connect to 59 north to make it up to Where-we-are-from, Alabama–with pit stops for gas, food, and bathroom, it should only take between five and six hours. If I owe you an email, it probably won’t come before next week, as I come back here on Saturday and then Sunday have to prepare for the coming week.

I will be listening to John Copenhaver’s Hall of Mirrors, which I am embarrassed to admit I’ve not yet read. I had started it, but got distracted by something–oh yes, I meant to take it on a trip with me and left it sitting on the counter instead of putting it into my backpack, so had to read something else, and then never got back around to it, which is disgraceful conduct by a reader, frankly. But I am grateful for forgetful me of the past because now I can enjoy it on my drive. I had thought about getting caught up on Donna Andrews or Carol Goodman or Lisa Unger; I am frightfully behind on all of them as well–I really don’t want to think about all the wonderful authors whose work I have fallen behind on, because it will just depress me.

I did do some work on a project last night doing something I’ve not done in a long time; mapping out a book and writing out biographies of the main characters, as well as the through-line of the crime. I’d gotten to the point that I didn’t really need to do this anymore; the characters would often reveal themselves to me as I wrote about them, but when you’re not writing as much as you used to and need to get back on that horse, go back to the things you used to do when you were trying to become a writer, that made the writing actually easier to do rather than trying to think it all up as you go. I’ve really gotten lazy with my writing, but a lot of it is, as I said, the muscles were always pretty much warmed up and strong and raring to go, so the extra steps I used to take when I was getting started no longer seemed necessary; I am also working on an outline–I can’t remember the last time I outlined a novel. But here we are, and I’ve always been about adapting to get things done and make progress. I think it is going to turn out pretty well, to be honest. I’m kind of excited about this and getting back to the Scotty, in all honesty. Soon, my precious, soon…

Ironically, I was too tired to pack last night and didn’t want to get out of bed this morning, either–but I also realized, this morning, that it actually made more sense to come home after work and pack, and leave from home rather than from the office. Leaving directly from the office would shave an entire five minutes off the drive, and is that five minutes really worth the hassle than leaving an hour later this afternoon will create? No, it really wasn’t. And while I always try to be time-efficient–a lifelong habit I am trying to break now because it’s part and parcel of my anxiety, and letting go of anxiety is always a good thing–getting there around seven instead of six? I’ll still be tired from the drive and will end up going to sleep early, so what difference does it make?

Progress, I think.

I also doubt I’ll be around here much until I get back Saturday, so probably the next entry will come on Sunday. I think you can handle it, Constant Reader, so until then–adieu.

Massive Ramses II at the Egyptian Museum

In My Dreams

Tuesday, and tomorrow I depart for Alabama and chile, I have so much to fucking do before I head out on the highway that it’s not even funny. I have to run errands after work tonight–mail, minor groceries, gas–and then I have things to do around the house all night, too, unless I want to come home to a hideous mess Saturday that I don’t want to deal with. All I am going to want to do when I get home is relax, cuddle with Sparky, and watch television. (I say that but I never ever don’t do things; I am always getting up and putting something away because I still have trouble sitting still; but it’s getting much easier now that Sparky likes to use me as a cat bed in my easy chair because I don’t want to disturb him.)

My doctor’s appointment went well. I have to do fasting labs again at some point before the next appointment (August 22), and I also got a referral for a hip X-ray. During the illness but before the hospitalization, I was losing my balance a lot and falling (or coming close to it). One day during this period, as I was walking to the gate to get a delivery I’d ordered, I lost my balance and before I could stop myself, I fell into the wooden fence hip and (bad) shoulder first. The leg has been kind of sore ever since–it felt bruised–and this weekend, noting that it still didn’t feel right, I realized that the leg wasn’t sore, but was actually numb on the outside from hip to knee. Doctor thinks when I felt against the fence I may have pinched a nerve (which is what I was thinking), or I may have an inflamed bursae (liquid filled sacs). Here’s hoping it’s nothing truly serious and can be treated simply and easily; I really don’t want to add “hip surgery” to my medical bills this year.

The great joys of getting older. Seriously, why isn’t there a handbook, for Christ’s sake?

Monday I am going to see an ophthalmologist to check me for Stargartz, a macular degeneration disease in which those who have it gradually grow blind. It’s genetic, and my sister has it, so you can see why I am a bit concerned. During the illness’ worst rampage and for a little while after, my vision was getting bad; and I’d just gotten a new prescription earlier this year…so not being able to read things on the television (most streaming apps have an image to click on for what you want to watch with very small print on it; I couldn’t read the print) or losing my corrected distance vision was concerning…but as I’ve improved physically, so has my vision, so I am not as concerned about this appointment as I was a few weeks ago. I mean, I am worried–I do not want to lose my eyesight–but it’s not as pressing as it was, if that makes sense? But…best to get it checked out. I’ll probably get my hip X-rayed on a Friday afternoon.

But last night I slept well, and am facing down everything I need to get done tonight. I definitely need to make a to-do list, for sure. I need to pack, for one thing, and make groceries and get the mail and clean up this disgusting apartment. Last night I was a bit tired when I got home, and decided to watch the last episode of The Mortician, which I’d kind of slept through on Sunday night (turns out, I only missed the last fifteen minutes). Paul came down and fell asleep on the couch, and I didn’t really want to start a new show when I am leaving tomorrow, so I just kind of let Youtube doom-play on the news and left-wing influencers, while scribbling more notes in my journal. I also went to bed relatively early as well, after doing some research on-line. It’s very weird to research a period of time when I was actually alive, and being reminded just how misogynist and racist that time was (the homophobia goes without saying because there was no gay rep, good or bad, anywhere; we were erased from the public consciousness like we didn’t exist); the commercials are almost entirely populated by white people, too. It’s nice to see how things have improved on those scores in the decades since. I suppose I should be glad that I find these things both startling and horrifying at the same time; that means I’ve retrained my brain to expect diversity, inclusion, and equity (ooooh, the DEI word!) in popular culture.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines (after getting some more coffee) for the day. I’ll check in again tomorrow, but no promises after that until I get back home!

Ephesus ruins.

Lost in the Crowd

Monday and it’s off to see my doctor this morning, woo-hoo! This is a follow-up to the blood work that said I was anemic; I don’t think it’s anything to be much worried about since I’d been sick for so long and being unable to keep much food down clearly impacted some of my vitamin and mineral levels. The bills from the illness and all of the concomitant charges have also started arriving; got a handful of them on Saturday, which was kind of staggering to see 1) how much I owed and 2) how much the original bill was. YIKES indeed. Heavy sigh. No idea how long it will take me to clear up this lovely additional financial burden, but nevertheless here we are. Dad said he’d help, so that’s a good thing for me to remember as I start trying to make financial plans for July and August.

LSU WON THE COLLEGE WORLD SERIES!!!! Woo-hoo! GEAUX TIGERS! This is their eighth championship, and their second in three years. They beat Coastal Carolina 5-3 yesterday to sweep the series and bring another trophy home to Baton Rouge. It was an interesting game–Coastal’s coach and first base coach were tossed out of the game in the first inning, which never happens–and of course, their starting pitcher was the asshole who dogged LSU in that press conference the other day. Hey, bitch, they scored five runs off your ass before you got sat down…how do you like us NOW? And you were supposed to be their star ace pitcher. Have a nice trip back to South Carolina.

The game pretty much sucked all the air out of the apartment, which is still a mess this morning. I didn’t get much done yesterday, but I did spend the morning working on some things and scribbling in my journal. I leave for Alabama on Wednesday afternoon, so I definitely need to be getting things done around here tonight for sure; I hate coming home from a trip to a messy house. I am going to listen to either Donna Andrews or Carol Goodman or Lisa Unger in the car on the drive over and back, which will be lovely–and I didn’t get much reading done yesterday either. I was drained after the game and the win, and we ended up watching The Mortician on HBO MAX, which was very interesting. I feel asleep during the third episode, and then went up to bed shortly thereafter, but I was intrigued by the documentary and what the actual guy had to say about dead bodies and corpses–“it’s not your loved one, they are gone”–was brutal but accurate? The death business in this country has always struck me as a little weird, but the death business isn’t for the dead, it’s for the living. Ironic to watch that show and have some thoughts about the death business when I’m getting ready to go visit a grave, isn’t it?

I’ll probably take Summerhouse with me to finish reading before bed every night, and next thing you know Pride Month will be over. I also need to get some writing done tonight when I get home, and since I don’t have any errands to run, that should be relatively easy. I am not in clinic this morning, either, which helps me to not feel so drained at the end of the day–I love my clients, but the interactions I have with them kind of wear me out by the end of the day–so I can come home and get stuff done. The apartment does look better than it did originally coming into the weekend, but it still definitely needs some work. Heavy sigh.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for a half-day. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check back in with you again tomorrow morning.

I had a crush on young Andrew Stevens in the 1970s and it’s easy to see why.

Masquerade

Sunday morning and all is quiet in the Lost Apartment. Sparky’s been fed and I am almost finished with my first cup of coffee, and it’s about time to put bread in the toaster. Sparky let me sleep later than usual this morning, which was nice, and now I am down here in the workspace waking up to face a new day and week. I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning, and then of course I am heading to Alabama Wednesday afternoon (this trip has strangely snuck up on me) to see Dad for a few days before returning back here on Saturday. Paul has his trainer this afternoon, so he won’t be home, so I should be able to get chores done while I am restlessly watching LSU play today for the College World Series championship.

The Tigers did win last night (hence a shot at winning the whole thing today) over Coastal Carolina 1-0; ending the Chanticleers’ 26 game winning streak. It was, as pitchers’ duels and close games always are, intense and nerve-wracking. The Tigers scored their lone run in the first inning, and made that lead hold through all nine innings behind pitcher Kade Anderson, who played the entire game and threw the last pitch of the game. I had seen Coastal Carolina’s team’s press conference, where they mocked and dragged LSU–which is an incredibly cocky and ignorant thing to do; that’s the sort of thing that motivates your opponents to whip your ass and last night, that’s what happened. I hope it’s all over this afternoon, frankly–but if there needs to be an intense and nerve-wracking third game Monday night, I’ll be watching, GEAUX TIGERS!

I did some work yesterday, and hopefully will get some more done today. The house is a mess–I ran errands and had groceries delivered–and so I need to put everything away and I also need to do some things, like make watermelon gazpacho, and clean out the refrigerator and pick up the rugs and so forth. I also need to do some filing to clear up the clutter around my workspace; and I don’t have to go anywhere today, which should make things a lot easier around here to get done. I also spent some time with my y/a reread, Sing Me a Death Song (Jay Bennett was truly a great and under-appreciated writer), and started The Crying Child by Barbara Michaels. I’m hoping to get further into Summerhouse today as well–but that kind of depends on how much writing I am able to get done this morning before the game (I should write before the game, because I can always read during the game) and how much cleaning I am able to do this morning to set the apartment to rights. I kind of was a bit on the lazy side yesterday, in all honesty, and let things slide a bit because I was busy relaxing.

And apparently we are now involved in yet another Middle Eastern conflict. Jesus fucking Christ, how do we as a nation never learn from our mistakes? Weren’t all the LIES we were told in 2003 about Iraq bad enough? Yes, I am old enough to remember that, and all the other bullshit the Right pushed through Congress (the PATRIOT Act needs to be repealed, and clearly Homeland Security needs to be abolished) as a result of 9/11, using fear and intimidation tactics to silence any opposition. Remember the Chicks? Whenever someone on the Right bemoans “cancel culture,” I do like to remind them they invented it–and the Chicks were fucking right; have we ever as a nation collectively apologized to them? But at least the mask is completely off; the last election was all about racism and misogyny. THANK GOD we didn’t elect the biracial woman, right? Miss me with your MAGA regrets–and I hope all your sons are lining up to enlist.

I love that we have money for a war but no money for Medicaid and Medicare. Choices.

Yesterday afternoon, I watched two documentaries while doing other things, and yes, I rewatched Surviving Ohio State, which deserves its own entry (and paying more attention made me realize how much worse everything was there than I thought, even after a scattered initial watch) and one called Southern Fried Lies, about criminality in a small Arkansas town (it kind of reminded me, at the end, of Mildred Pierce), which was also kind of nuts and crazy. I do recommend it–those small, rural town tales always make me smugly thing of all the odes to idyllic small town life, and how it’s so much better than urban life…sure, Jan, sure. (I always think what fucking small town are you talking about?) I have an idea for a murder story in a small town of less than a thousand people, and yes, that small town is in Kansas. (I have a lot of Kansas and Alabama stories to write; funny how I write so little about Houston and Fresno and Tampa.)

And on that note, I think I am going to head into the spice mines for the day. Have a lovely Sunday (we’re in yet another heat advisory), and I’ll be back tomorrow morning before I see my doctor.

Baryshnikov. Don’t really need to add anything, do I?

touch

Saturday! Sparky didn’t let me sleep as late as I would have perhaps preferred, but I am awake now and slurping down coffee and having a lovely morning thus far. I slept really well last night, which was nice, but mostly spent my evening after our Costco run (it was bizarre; we ran into two people we know there, which rarely, if ever, happens anymore) watching videos on Youtube about a) the 1970s for another project and b) World War II (for obvious reasons) before I fell asleep in my chair and had to finally go upstairs to bed. I did get a lot of chores done yesterday, which was lovely; the dishes are all done, and there’s a load of clothes in the dryer that also need to be finished and folded and put away. I have to run to the mail today, get gas, and make some groceries (while having others delivered1), and the floors need to be vacuumed, but other than that, I have a nice restful day at home planned. LSU plays game one of the National Championships tonight against Coastal Carolina at six tonight, but isn’t anything college baseball related going to seem anti-climactic after the ninth inning of the Arkansas game the other night? Probably.

I decided to read The Crying Child by Barbara Michaels as my next reread; I did some poking around on-line about Myra Breckinridge and apparently I missed a lot on my two previous reads of the book, so I am going to have to spend more time with it when I read it, and right now I am not feeling the bandwidth in my head to do that kind of critical reading of it–while trying to finish Summerhouse, which is my goal for this weekend. (Next up for my new-to-me read is going to be Mia Manansala’s y/a debut, methinks.) I am also thinking I may rewatch Surviving Ohio State–I was doing things and reading during my first watch, so wasn’t paying as much attention as perhaps I should have, and I’d like to write about it more in depth.

I missed the deadline for the short story I’ve been working on, which means I can now talk about the story and the market without jinxing anything; I was so fatigued this past week from the infusion I lost track of dates and thought the 20th, for some reason, was Monday. Nope, it was yesterday and so I missed the deadline and still didn’t finish the story. I will have to put it aside and finish it later–I think going forward, to keep from having so many story fragments, I’ll finish the story anyway rather than just putting it to the side and forgetting it. For one thing, I kind of got wrapped up in it and the main character. Anyway, the anthology was about sea monsters–anything below the surface of any water, really. When I was in the hospital, I had an idea for a new book–and realized I could use an old unfinished manuscript and its characters to graft onto the new idea (the old idea didn’t work because of its setting), which actually got me a little excited, and when I saw this submission call, I thought, oh, I can write something for this that will be an excerpt from this longer novel. So, that’s what I was trying to do with the story I called “The Lake Must Be Fed.” The original manuscript was called The Enchantress, and was set on the coast of the Florida panhandle, but it never really worked for there; the actual terrain was too different from what I imagined. I’ve also always been interested in the concept of “drowned towns,”–places that were evacuated to make way for a reservoir after a river was dammed. Scott Carsen’s last book that I read was one of these (completely different from my idea), and of course, the primary inspiration for moving it from the panhandle to northwest Alabama is Georgia’s own cursed lake, Lake Lanier. I’m sorry I didn’t finish the story, but I’m not putting it on the back-burner just yet; I have other things I need to write at the moment, but when I get stuck on the front-burner stuff I can work on “The Lake Must Be Fed,” which I think is a great title. I don’t know where it’ll get published, if ever, but it would be nice to have it finished and ready to go.

That’s the thing with short stories. I love the form, I love writing them (even as I always struggle with them), but the problem is there’s not many markets for them and you have to get really lucky with a specific submission call to say “oh, I have something for this!” and not have to write something new…which is partly why I have so many partials and unpublished stories in my files. Heavy sigh. AH, such is the writer’s lot in life, is it not?

I also managed to finish and send out another newsletter yesterday, and I also realized that I don’t have to finish and send every newsletter about my queer life during Pride, just like I don’t just read queer fiction during June, either. I do make more of an effort to talk about these things during Pride Month, when it’s more likely the straights might read it and reflect on what I’ve said (whether they agree or disagree with the points I make), but I’m not just gay during June; I’m gay all the rest of the year, too, and it’s just as important to speak out all year rather than just in June. I am writing one now about Overcompensating, and extrapolating that out to other shows/movies about queer people–and how you can pretty much tell when something queer is made to “play in Peoria” as opposed to being something authentic queer people can relate to other than just the sexualities being portrayed. (For the record, Overcompensating seemed authentic to me; but was it, or was it just something I could relate to? This is why I generally don’t do criticism–because it always feels like you’re speaking for the entire community, and I am uncomfortable with that, always having to make certain people understand I only speak for myself and not others, certainly not for the queer community as a whole.)

Well, my coffee certainly is working its magic on me this morning, isn’t it? This is fairly long already, and I don’t think I’ve covered everything that I want to as of yet? Let me get another cup of coffee and the next stage of my breakfast before I continue on here, shall I? Let’s shall.

1 do love me some honey-nut Cheerios. I started craving them when I was sick, and have been having them for breakfast almost every morning since I was able to start eating normally again. I’ve never been a breakfast person, choosing to use the time I’d spend getting breakfast together and then eating it instead staying in bed longer. That changed a bit when I started having to get up early every day, but now I eat so much breakfast that I’m really not all that hungry the rest of the day. And if I don’t eat a lot in the morning, I am starving by mid-afternoon. And I am also eating in the evenings; my dinners are usually lighter than breakfast, but I’ve been making dinner since I came home from the hospital. Again, I am generally not exhausted every night when I get home from work, and do not always repair to my easy chair to be a Sparky bed and relax from the day the way I used to; I can generally get some writing and reading and cleaning done every night, which is kind of nice. I don’t feel as defeated as I did before I got sick, either. I am suspecting that before it erupted into full-scale illness it was already affecting me physically before the lower intestine/colon went into a full revolt.

All right, I should probably bring this to a close and get to work this morning. I need to do some reading and cleaning and possibly some writing, this morning. I also need to do some editing, which I always seem to hate to do because it means more work. But I also always put it off, which is a mistake. So I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday wherever you are, Constant Reader, and no worries–I’ll be back no later than tomorrow morning.

I always wanted to go to Egypt and see the pyramids, among other sites. Egypt has fascinated me since my childhood, and I’ve always wanted to write about Egypt.
  1. Remember the other day when I was talking about not having a day job but would have to leave the house to run errands? I forgot about having things delivered! ↩︎