Here we are on Wednesday. It’s going to be 76 degrees in New Orleans today–allegedly–but it’s cool in the apartment at the moment. (I think the air might be on? Paul turned it on last night when he got home from work I believe–but it was late and I was about to go to bed so I don’t really recall for certain) I could have easily slept later this morning, but I am awake and am looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow. (And how sad that eight is sleeping in now? Granted, for years I got up at seven every morning, but those days are far in the past–those were also the days when I could go to bed, fall into a deep sleep, and wake up completely refreshed at seven every morning…I rather miss those days.
I did manage to somehow get quite a bit done yesterday–which was lovely–but as always there’s another mountain of things to get done today, which is not only fine but rather livable. I went to the gym last night, and was correct in my prediction–I wound up skipping a couple of exercises as it started to get more full the longer I was there, and I figured a lighter, lesser workout is better than no workout at all–but these next two are going to have to be a lot more intense and I have to do the full thing. It does feel good to have the muscle exhaustion–the muscles are still a bit tired this morning–and I was very pleased when I got home and was able to relax with my protein shake. I was a bit too fried to do much of anything other than social media scrolling and Youtube history videos–none of which I can remember this morning, so I clearly wasn’t paying nearly enough attention–but it was a nice relaxing evening at home which I rather enjoyed. After work today, I am working at home for the next two days and then have a lovely four day weekend; I took off Lundi Gras, and of course Mardi Gras is a paid holiday. I hope to make significant progress on the book over that four-day weekend–wish me luck–and I am also hoping to get some serious cleaning done around the Lost Apartment.
I also keep forgetting Valentine’s Day is this Sunday. I think the last few years I was sharing safer sex messaging as well as information about STI’s (It’s VD, after all) which earned some laughter from some and annoyed others so I am not sure that I will be doing that again this year, but it did make me laugh when I did it before. Valentine’s is one of those holidays that I consider to be commercial; the entire point of the day is to get people to spend money on cards, candy, gifts, dinner, wine and so forth. And like other, similar holidays, I’ve never really gotten the point. Then again, I am this weird combination of highly sentimental and completely unsentimental–movies and TV shows can make me cry (and sometimes books, too); yet things in my day-to-day life that move other people to tears inevitably leave me cold. Go figure. Paul will inevitably get me a card and some candy and maybe some little, inexpensive thoughtful gift; I inevitably forget and get him nothing…which kind of sums up our relationship in a nutshell, methinks.
Heartless. That’s me.
I’ve learned to live with it.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Y’all have a great Wednesday, ya hear?
And here’s Tuesday, rolling in like a thunderstorm across the plains.
Sorry, I am clearly thinking too much about Kansas these days. I’m a bit more tired this morning than I was yesterday morning–not quite as awake and lively as I was yesterday morning, but that’s okay. I do feel somewhat rested, and hopefully the cappuccino will make up for the rest. I wasn’t tired when I got home from work yesterday, so I actually cleaned up some of the weekend mess I hadn’t gotten to–including the floors–so when I got up this morning I came down to a clean apartment and an organized kitchen, which was actually quite lovely. Tonight after work I am going to the gym–it will inevitably be a half-assed workout, as the Tuesday night one generally is; tired from the day and too many people at the gym, I inevitably get impatient waiting for people to finish their lackadaisical “I fuck around with my phone for five minutes between sets” bullshit and wind up skipping an exercise. I’ve never understood this mentality, quite frankly; I try to keep the rest between sets (and different machines) to a minimum in order to keep my heart rate up and help burn fat more efficiently with each exercise. I prefer to spend no more than half an hour working out–including the warm-up stretches–because the longer you are there doesn’t mean you actually are working harder or more efficiently or effectively. And yet there are so many people who think they need to spend an hour there or it’s not a good workout….but if you are allowing you’re heart rate to slow and your muscles to get cold between sets or exercises, you’re not working out as effectively as you may think. All exercise works, of course–even if you’re not doing it properly, you will get some results from exercise–but as my first trainer explained to me nearly thirty years ago–why not be as efficient as possible, and get the most from your workout you can?
I am, after all, all about the efficiency.
I managed to get a lot done yesterday, which was also lovely and efficient. I got a lot of my emails under control–well, let’s not get too crazy, but I was able to get a lot of it answered–and I came up with another idea for a short story (I know, I know, it’s a never-ending thing here; idea after idea after idea) but its more pulpy; I’ve never really written pulpy stuff–although I love it–and when the idea came to me I was like, very cool, I’ve always wanted to write something like this (which begs the question, “why have you never had a pulpy idea before?” I don’t know. But I’d like to write something that rawly emotional, morally bankrupt, and hard-boiled…the title I came up with is certainly Cornell Woolrich worthy) and of course I started scribbling in my latest journal (I am so glad I decided to keep a journal again; I rarely write daily entries about my life the way I used to years ago–the blog serves that purpose, I suppose–but it’s nice to have something to write ideas down into again, doodle and scribble while trying to unlock a puzzle in something I am currently writing, notes about movies I’m watching, etc. It’s a real treasure trove for me). Once Paul got home from the gym we watched another episode of Resident Alien, which is really quite fun–even though it takes a seriously dark turn here and there–but even with the dark turns, it’s always interesting. It can go from seriously funny in one scene to remarkably dark in the next, which is a curious choice. we’re all caught up on the episodes that have already aired, so tonight we’ll probably move along to season two of Mr. Mercedes, streaming on Peacock now. Then that new Eva Green show should be dropping around Valentine’s Day, which is this weekend (!).
I’ve not commented on the pandemic Carnival much, primarily because thinking about it makes me sad. As frustrating and exhausting as Carnival can be–I am not missing the ‘need to plan my work schedule around the parade schedule’ dilemma I usually have to deal with every year–I do miss the parades; I miss heading down to the corner to hang out with neighbors and watch the bands and walking krewes and flambeaux carriers and catching things flung from passing floats. No matter how tired I am, I always get a rush of adrenaline when parades are going past and love being out there on the street. It’s also a lovely time of year in which the community seems to come together. We’re not having that camaraderie refresher this year, which is a pity; I feel like we all could use, as a nation, some kind of camaraderie building “we’re all in this together” kind of thing, and I’ve always felt bad for the rest of the country that they don’t get to have the bonding experience Carnival is for New Orleans residents. I went uptown yesterday after work to get the mail and saw some marvelous house-float decorations; I really need to go out for a drive one evening and take pictures of all the amazingly decorated houses. New Orleans, after all, loves nothing more than decorating for holidays…I wonder what the skeleton house on St. Charles is doing for Yardi Gras?
And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I will see you tomorrow.
Ah, Monday morning and the sun has yet to rise in the east. It’s chilly in the Lost Apartment this morning, and as I steel myself for yet another day in the spice mines at the office, I am also pleased with how much I accomplished this weekend.–which wouldn’t have happened had there been parades. This week, of course, would be the big weekend of Carnival–with Muses and Orpheus and Bacchus and Endymion and Iris and so many, many others passing by down at the corner (well, not Endymion) and I would be trying to figure out how to get to and from work…so glad I don’t have to deal with any of that this year, quite frankly. But I do miss Carnival and the parades. I also have a long weekend coming up; Fat Tuesday is a holiday, so I went ahead and took a vacation day for Monday. Since there’s no distractions going on at the corner this weekend, I instead have four glorious days off in a row, which should help me get much further along with the revisions of the book and getting me that much closer to turning the bitch in.
I did wind up not working yesterday after all. I made groceries and then went to the gym; I was tired after that and repaired to my easy chair. I tried to read, but alas, was too tired and unfocused to get very far in what I was reading, so decided to rest for a while and take notes. This resulted into my falling into–of all things–a wormhole about The Partridge Family on Youtube; I don’t even remember how this came about, to be honest. I think a video was suggested to me, and after I got started down that garden path, there was no returning from it. This wormhole of course led me into music videos–clips from the show–and so forth; and who knew there was still so much Partridge/David Cassidy love out there in the world? (Shouldn’t really have been so surprising, really–look at how seriously the Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys fans still take their devotion to those series books they read decades ago–there’s probably still some serious Leif Erickson and Shaun Cassidy fan channels on Youtube, with some significant crossover between Shaun fans and The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew fandom as well.) What was really surprising to me was–despite not having heard the music in a while–how good it sounded. David Cassidy was a good singer–it really is astonishing what a superstar he was during that time period–and I could still remember the lyrics to a lot of the songs. I’ve always liked harmonies when it comes to songs, so I always enjoyed the harmonies, and some of the songs still hold up today. (I will not go far as to say the songs would be hit records again today) I had no idea their debut album peaked at Number Four on the charts, that they had so many hits–the first three albums went platinum; any number of gold singles–and listening to the music and watching videos took me back to those years. The Partridge Family spanned the time from when we lived in the city and moved into the suburbs; it finally went off the air when I was in junior high. My sister and I watched every Friday night, groaning our way through The Brady Bunch (even as a kid I thought it was juvenile and lame) as a sort of punishment for getting there. The humor/comedy/situations on The Partridge Family often wasn’t much better–sometimes the two shows used the same basic plot premises–but the concept behind it was so much more clever and original than The Brady Bunch, and it worked better.
And of course, as I watched the videos–there was a Biography, an E! True Hollywood Story, and so forth–I kept thinking about how weirdly Danny Bonaduce’s life has turned out, and then began thinking in terms of a novel about a similar type show in the past whose cast in the present day is trying to figure out why the one whose life took a Bonaduce-like turn did precisely that. He would be dead, of course, and some of the cast members would still be in show business and some would not; it would be one of the younger kids telling the story because their own memories of their time on the show would be vague since they’d been so young, and having left show business far far behind in their rear view mirror….looking into the dead one’s life would, of course, bring back memories of their own and remind them how glad they are to be out of the business now.
And yes, after watching I did make a Partridge Family playlist on Spotify. Sue me.
WE also started watching a show called Resident Alien last night, which was actually kind of clever. I think it airs on Syfy; we’re watching it on Hulu, of course–we only watch the Super Bowl when the Saints are in it, so I think we’ve watched perhaps two Super Bowls this century–and the other one I watched was when I was out of town visiting friends and we went to a Super Bowl party, and I don’t even remember who played that year–and so I suppose this morning congratulations are in order for Tom Brady and the Buccaneers, good for you. Anyway, I digress. I think Resident Alien may have been a film? The title certainly seems familiar, but the premise of the show–which really boils down to ‘fish out of water’–features an alien creature who had a mission to earth, only to have his ship hit by lightning and crash in Colorado. The creature then kills a human and takes over his life while trying to find his ship–now buried in snow–and trying to avoid human contact. Of course he gets unwillingly dragged into human contact, and there’s a big surprise twist at the end of the first episode. Some of the humor is predictable–an alien with no idea of what humans are actually like learning to adapt and become more human-like in order to pull off the deception; this was first done really well with Starman in the 1980’s, starring Jeff Bridges–but it’s still funny. And the little remote town in Colorado is an interesting setting. We liked that first episode and intend to watch more; it’s quite engaging, and while it’s eminently predictable–he’s going to start liking humans and getting personally vested in them–it’s still very well done.
And on that note, tis time to get ready for work. Talk to you tomorrow!
Wednesday, also pay the bills day. Heavy heaving sigh. I always despair when this time of the month rolls around; while it is always lovely to get paid again, almost everything is also due in the first half of the month, so watching my balance dwindle is never really much fun, to be perfectly honest. Oh, well, and so it goes, you know what I mean? Perhaps some extra cash will drop out of the sky or something, who knows what? Stranger things have happened, after all, and it isn’t every month that pay day falls so unfortunately the way this one has, alas.
Yesterday was kind of cool, as the first-ever openly gay person was confirmed by the Senate to sit in the President’s cabinet. The usual right-wing trash opposed his candidacy, of course–the Homophobic Confederate Caucus (HCC for short), as I prefer to call them–and voted against his confirmation; womp fucking womp, traitors.
It looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day today; the sun is rising in the distance over the West Bank in a riot of colors that are quite spectacular to see, and it looks as though the sky is relatively clear. It’s cold and I have the space heater going, but that’s pretty much par for the course in early February….what’s disheartening is that this would ordinarily be the first weekend of our parades…and while I am glad I don’t have to plan my work schedule around the parade schedule this year–one less stressor, thank you, baby Jesus–it’s very weird and strange to not be having parades this year. Last year’s Carnival wasn’t a good one–when floats kill people, it’s not a good Carnival season–and it kind of sucks that is the most recent one in memory; but at the same time, because of the pandemic and the passage of time being so fucked with, it also seems like last year’s parade season was a million years ago.
I did make it to the gym last night, which felt terrific–it had been a week, and I am very happy my arm is no longer sore from the vaccination. I was, naturally, exhausted when I got home, but managed to get some work done on the book. As I get further into this revision, I am also realizing that the chapters I kept revising whenever I would go back to work on this were the first ones…so Chapter Five, which I worked on last night, was the first that hasn’t been completely revised in several drafts. While this made it a bit trickier to revise–it also was somewhat easier? I still think transitions within the chapter aren’t as smooth now as they need to be, but my plan is to get a chapter per day (minimum) done between now and the weekend; and then spending the weekend working ahead on print copies as well as going back and copy-editing what I have done–which should be the first ten chapters or so by the weekend. I also slept very well last night–wearing one’s self out at the gym is always an excellent way to ensure that you get good sleep, and of course, tomorrow and Friday are my work-at-home days….so I get to sleep a little more than I do on Monday thru Wednesday. I am getting used to this, though–I find myself having no trouble going to bed at ten (if not earlier) on these nights, and the extra hour or so on my work-at-home days is also rather marvelous. Paul was late getting home last night, so after I finished working on the book I went into a wormhole on Youtube and the Internet, looking up same-sex relationships in Greek mythology, and being bemused by how I learned none of this studying Greek mythology when I was a kid. I do enjoy Greek mythology–and I definitely enjoy modern novels based on and/or in Greek mythology–Madeline Miller’s Song of Achilles and Circe come to mind; there’s another one I’ve come across about the Trojan War I am interested in as well. I’ve also always wanted to write a book about Troy–it’s been languishing in my files for years now, about a gay prince of Troy during the War and called The Trojan Boy; I have this image of an opening scene in which my gay prince (not a son of Queen Hecuba, but rather a concubine from the harem) is standing on the walls of Troy and watching the fires of the Greek camp as the sun sets, thinking about how he has so few memories of the time before the Greeks came; all he knows is the war and the endless longing for it to be over.
But, then the Imposter Syndrome comes in and says things like yes, but Madeline Miller has a PhD in classic mythology and you couldn’t possibly know enough to write such a thing and so forth; I can always count on my Imposter Syndrome to curb whatever writing ambitions I may have, or aspire to. There are some historical thrillers I’ve been wanting to write for quite some time, too–and then comes the inevitable yeah, who do you think you are with your limited knowledge and laziness to do the proper research in order to write about another time correctly? I have written precisely two stories set in the past–one set during the gay government purges of the 1950’s (which is yet another reason Pete Buttigieg’s appointment to the cabinet is so important and historic) and of course, my Sherlock story in the 1910’s. But an entire book? I don’t know, I just don’t know…I wish I had more confidence and belief in myself and my abilities. But I am desperately hoping that Chlorine will give me the confidence to write other stories and books set in the past…
Ah, for the self-assurance of a mediocre straight white man!
I feel pretty good this morning; well-rested and all that, and of course my cappuccinos this morning taste fantastic. I am looking forward to getting home tonight and getting back into the writing of the book–so important–and figuring it all out. Rewriting and revising and editing can be a drag–it’s always disheartening to read something you’ve written only to see, in horror, how bad it actually is, and that you have to figure out a way to fix it; much as I had to fix Chapter Five last evening…and yet it is SO satisfying to figure it out, make it work, and sit back, warmed by the glow of succeeding, that I have once again put to rest that horrible fear that always lurks in my subconscious that someday the time will come when I not only no longer can think of anything to write but won’t be able to fix the things that I already have.
And on that note, tis time to head into the office for yet another day of STI testing. Talk to you tomorrow, Constant Reader!
Tuesday after the Edgar nominations were released–which is always one of my favorite days of the year. I love seeing how excited everyone–especially those who make the short-lists–always is. It’s also three weeks until Mardi Gras; which is going to be weird and kind of sad. It’s a bit of a shame, since last year’s was so cursed with bad energy almost from the very beginning. I’m glad I don’t have to plan my life around the parade schedule this year–that is quite nice–but it’s still kind of sad.
Insomnia returned last night, and this morning I am already feeling tired and worn out. The cappuccino is waking me up, but I feel very tired and drained and my eyes are all messed up; burning and watering from lack of sleep. It is most unpleasant, actually, particularly since I was planning on going to the gym after work tonight. I have a sneaking suspicion that may not happen; we’ll have to see how I feel when I get off work today and get home. Although I will say the shower really helped, and I think the caffeine is starting to take effect in my system as well. I have about a gazillion emails to answer today–yikes–and I really need to start working on the book at some point now that time is running out on the deadline.
Nothing like a deadline to kick your ass into gear.
We finished watching Flack last night and it is truly amazing. Anna Paquin is riveting as a spin doctor, who has an almost frightening ability to rationalize anything and excuse everything and come up with some absolutely insane ideas to protect her clients’ careers and reputations–with little to no care about how it impacts other people or the others in her clients’ lives. The primary problem is she has adapted what works for her in her day job into her private life–spinning merrily away and damaging her romantic relationship as well as those with the people she is close to–and most especially, her sister. It’s an exceptional performance–everyone in the cast is excellent, and all the roles are well written. But it’s Sophie Okenodo as the woman who runs the firm that steals the show–her ruthlessly ambitious executive has the best lines, and Okenodo plays it to the hilt. There’s a scene between her and a lowly intern in the season finale that alone should get Okenodo an Emmy; but since it’s on Prime who knows? Tonight we are starting the second season of Servant, M. Night Shyamalan’s fever dream of a nightmare series for Apple Plus; Lauren Ambrose is amazing–again, the entire cast is great–and it’s very cleverly written and creepy as all get out. I hope the second season is as good as the first.
I also am looking forward to reading more of Alyssa Cole’s When No One is Watching–which is an Edgar finalist for Best Paperback Original. I can certainly see why; the first few chapters I’ve read already are extremely well-written with a strong voice for the main character. There are a lot of terrific books on the Edgar shortlists; more books I may never get around to reading, alas.
Ah, I see what kind of day this is going to be–ebb and flow with energy. I just had a bit of a low, but now I am wired again. So bizarre, really. But I am just going to have to power through the low energy cognitive function and see what I can do about getting everything caught up. It would be amazing to get caught up on a day when I am not functioning at anything remotely close to 100%, wouldn’t it? But I keep looking at my emails and not having the energy or courage to even open one to read, let alone answer. But they won’t go away and the longer I go without answering some of these the worse off I will be in the long run, and let’s not forget–more will just keep coming in, like Sisyphus pushing the boulder.
Heavy heaving sigh.
I did notice yesterday that my body is changing–the regular working out is reshaping my body again, and while I doubt I am ever going to fit into size 29 pants again (I doubt i will ever go lower than 31, and even that would be miracle) it is nice to see that the workouts I am doing are having an effect–even if I think most of the time that my workouts are pretty wimpy; I have a really good base of muscle underneath the layers of fat, and even the little bit of exercise I am doing is having an effect. My posture is improving and my chest/shoulders/upper back are looking nice and bigger, which is having the desired effect of making my waist look smaller. I was in the bathroom yesterday washing my hands and happened to glance up into the mirror and was like, hey, when did that change occur? It was a most pleasant surprise, and I was quite delighted to see it. Probably at the end of February I am going to change from a full-body workout to a targeted body part program; it will mean the return of the much-loathed Leg Day, but that’s the most effective kind of program…I am hoping my body can handle it by the beginning of March.
And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow morning.
And just like that it is Saturday again. Another good night of sleep–I did wake a few times, but had little to no difficulty in falling back to sleep, which was lovely–and I feel relatively well-rested this morning. Yesterday was, of course, a work-at-home Friday, and I had to take a bit of a break to go to the West Bank to get the car serviced; it was perhaps a bit overdue on the oil change, and I also learned something new about my car–it doesn’t really desperately need an oil change until the orange wrench lights up on the dashboard, or once a year, whichever comes first. I’ve had the car for nearly four years or so at this point, and since I have slightly less than 17,000 miles on it in that amount of time–hence the answer about the oil change. I’m still, obviously, unused to having a car produced so recently; all the old rules about oil changes and service and everything else stemming from having an ancient car no longer applies. It’s quite lovely, actually, but I am still not used to it, frankly.
I also love my car dealership–they are always so professional, courteous, and friendly. I have never had a single bad experience with them, and should the day come that I would replace my car, obviously I would go there and buy the new car from them. As much as I resent that car payment depleting my checking account every month–and the insurance payment–I really do love my car and am very pleased with it. It runs like a dream, I love that my phone syncs with the car stereo via bluetooth so I can make hands-free calls when I drive if I so choose–I generally choose not to, but there have been times I’ve been in the car and gotten a call. needed to take, and I prefer the hands-free method, frankly. I also grabbed lunch at Sonic since I was over there already–I always do this, and it had been a while since I’d had Sonic (there’s also a Five Guys on Manhattan Boulevard now; but I wanted tater tots so Sonic was the obvious choice), and then settled in for an afternoon of condom packing and watching movies.
Yesterday I was talking about 80’s Neo-noir, triggered by a rewatch of the terrific Angel Heart, and so as I scrolled through the watch-lists I’ve made on various streaming services (some of them really need to be cut out, quite frankly) I came across The Big Easy on Prime. This is a film that is almost universally reviled in New Orleans; I’ve not watched it since we moved here, but it also, like Angel Heart, piqued an interest in New Orleans I had always had, so it also played a small part in my eventually winding up living here, so it always has a special place in my heart for that very reason. I also thought it might be interesting to rewatch it after living here for nearly three decades, and to see it from the perspective of a local (I will always be a local, an important distinction from a native here). It wasn’t long into the film before I started laughing and cringing, to be honest, but it’s also a fun movie to watch because, as with anything filmed here, you start trying to pick out the various locations where it was shot. It also had some very weird geography for New Orleans, as does every movie filmed and set here.
But the movie is not completely terrible. When I originally saw it, in the theater, I had an enormous crush on Dennis Quaid–insane grin and all–because of that extraordinary body he had as a young man, and he also had charisma and charm on screen. Having him play a Cajun cop in New Orleans wasn’t perhaps the best casting choice; but given the way the role was written and the screenplay itself, he wasn’t bad–he did the best he could with what he was given to work with. It’s another one of those movies that assumes New Orleans is a Cajun city, which it is not; there are Cajuns in the city, yes of course, but they aren’t the dominant demographic nor do you here Cajun accents everywhere you go; I’d say I don’t think I’ve ever heard a Cajun accent, or Cajun language, used here. (One of my former co-workers was from Lafayette, in the heart of Acadiana, and he would talk Cajun to me sometimes; I always enjoyed it. The Cajuns are, frankly, fascinating to me, and I would love to study their culture and history more) The film also portrayed the New Orleans police department in a non-too-flattering light; almost all of the cops are corrupt in some casual way, whether it’s actually the drug trade or taking kickbacks from the “widows and orphans” fund, including detective Remy McSwain; the police department is practically a family business for the McSwains. Ellen Barkin, with her own style of unique beauty and sexiness, plays a new ADA in the city, Ann Osborn, and her job is primarily to investigate corruption in the police department–she was brought in by the Feds. Again, the role was written in a horribly sexist way; Ann is smart and capable and hard-working–why else would the Feds bring her in, particularly when the corruption is so deeply embedded that it’s such an accepted part of the police culture that no one even thinks twice about it? And yet Remy is so hot and charming and sexy, she struggles between her ethics and her knowing he’s corrupt and basically turns into an idiot in his presence at all times–clumsy, bumping into things, dropping things–and of course, she only wears her glasses when she’s working. Eventually she brings him around to recognizing that he’s one of the bad guys, and they combine forces–and have steamy sex scenes–to close the case they are both investigating, an apparent drug war between rival gangs which may not be real, just made to look real. The city looks beautiful–there are so few places in this country that look so astonishingly beautiful on film (hence the draw for me) and the story itself is a pretty decent one. But they managed to get so much wrong about New Orleans–beginning with the fact no one here calls it that, or “N’awlins.” I can certainly see why the film is so loathed here. It was adapted into a television series that began airing when Paul and I first moved here, and if the movie’s depiction was bad, the television show’s was even worse. We hate-watched it until it got so bad it wasn’t even campy anymore; the series was up on Prime for awhile, and I rewatched the first episode but had to turn it off after ten minutes because I couldn’t take how terrible it actually was.
I also started reading a short story by Patti Abbott yesterday, from the Lawrence Block anthology From Sea to Stormy Sea while I was waiting for them to finish servicing my car, and I intend to finish reading that story today–it’s amazing to me how quick and efficient the service at my dealership is–and I will probably read some more stories in that anthology over the course of the weekend. I have a lot of work to get done–so much work–and I really need to start working on the book as well. Time is slipping away fairly quickly, which means February will be incredibly stressful for me if I don’t get my shit together, but at least there are no parades to have to plan around this year.
And now to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely weekend, Constant Reader.
So yesterday was the last day of my vacation. Heavy heaving sigh. It was a bit on the weird side, though, because of the holidays and so forth I kept losing track of what day it was. Friday seemed like Saturday to me, and every day last week I had to really sit down and think about what day it actually was–or look at my Google calendar. #madness
I did finish the book yesterday, and sent it to my publisher two days late. I really thought I was going to get this one in on time–still not certain the final chapter is complete, but the manuscript currently sits at over 90,000 words and I just can’t think about the book anymore. I’m delighted to be finished with it, disappointed it took me an extra two days, and now I am going to breathe a bit as I try to get caught up with everything I let slide while I slogged through finishing this book.
As always, I overestimated how much time I can spend staring at a computer screen and underestimated how long it would take to put the copy edits/corrections into the entire document. And of course, the MacBook Air problems continued this morning as well. I fucking hate this thing, seriously.
But Bury Me in Shadows is finished; and now I can start figuring out how to finish #shedeservedit by March 1 and a short story by 1/15. And oh my God, the emails I’ve been ignoring while I tried to get this done. But I am glad to be going back to work this morning, despite having to get up at a ridiculously early hour, and I feel fairly well rested; I had issues sleeping during my vacation–of course–but now that I am going to go back to my usual schedule, hopefully that will be a thing of the past. I haven’t been to the gym since getting my inoculation (part one); my shoulder was sore and moving my left arm in an upward motion–required for the gym–hurt, so I thought it smart and prudent to skip it. I will go tonight after I get off work, of course, and try to make up for the lost time.
Since I was on deadline for a book, I never really had the opportunity to reflect on the shit-show that was 2020. It’s weird, too, because usually I am looking forward to Carnival–Twelfth Night is Wednesday, which kicks off the season, and there were King cakes already out at Rouse’s yesterday–but the parades are cancelled due to the pandemic, so Carnival is going to be weird this year. I’m kind of glad I don’t have to plan my life around parades, to be honest–but it’s still going to be different and strange…and imagine how insane parade season will be next year! I will eventually recap my 2020 for this blog at some point–favorite books and movies and television shows and so forth–but that isn’t going to happen today, as my memory is shot and I will have to go through old blogs to see what I read and what I watched this past year. I also haven’t really done a goals post for 2021 the way I usually do, either–primarily because there was one goal, and that was to get the book done. It was nice having the holidays and the little bit of vacation time to work on the book; it was one of those ah this is what life would be like if I only had to write books things, and it was quite lovely. One thing I noticed, too, while I was working on the final polish was that one of my biggest worries is that I forget things, or start something and never finish it off, leave subplots dangling without an answer, etc.–or names change for characters, that sort of thing. Partly it’s because when I write and I come to a place in the story where I have to remember something from earlier in the book, I usually don’t remember and guess–and it’s amazing how often my subconscious rises up and makes the correct guess for me. I always used to be able to remember the plot and things like that in my head; my memory is shot now, so I am generally terrified as I give the final a final polish and copy edit…there were only a couple of small minor things–a character’s last name changed once, a location’s name was the incorrect one–so I was pretty well pleased and the final step not nearly as difficult as anticipated or expected. (Thank God, as it took me three days to get through the manuscript and input those corrections and deletions; who knows how long it would have taken if the manuscript was more of a mess?) It also went from a book about a high school student to a college student–almost from the very beginning of its origins as a short story, the main character was young; going from about thirteen in the short story to seventeen in the original draft to twenty in the final. It also went from first-person/present tense to first person/past tense, and it was amazing to me how many verbs I’d missed going through and making those changes. Laziness, probably, being the correct answer to that.
As always, when I am pressed to finish a book my mind becomes very creative. I was scribbling down ideas in my journal almost all of last week, and I even came up with a new Scotty title, which might even be the next book–Twelfth Knight Knavery, which is just so fun I am going to have to do it. I had originally planned on doing a pre-pandemic book (French Quarter Flambeaux, primarily because the shitty Carnival season of 2019 deserved to be recorded for posterity), but this one….I kind of like the idea behind this one, and there’s no reason I can’t do two pre-pandemic books for Scotty before Quarter Quarantine Quadrille. My timeline for Scotty, after all, is completely under my own control. And I suspect people aren’t going to want to be reading about the pandemic for a little while at any rate. I do love the title Twelfth Knight Knavery, though.
We’ve also been watching the final season of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina on Netflix, and my God, how I love this show. I hate that it’s ending, but also get it–this final season has the gang taking on the Eldritch horrors, and where do you go after that? We only have two episodes left to watch, which will most likely occur tonight or tomorrow. The Saints also won yesterday, so football season is theoretically not over yet for Louisiana fans, but while people around here are talking Super Bowl…I dunno.
And on that note, it’s time to get back to the spice mines and try to get caught up on things. Have a lovely first Monday of the new year, Constant Reader.
Wednesday, and technically the last day of my vacation; even though tomorrow I am working from home before a three day weekend–so at least tomorrow I won’t have to leave the house, other than getting my first COVID-19 vaccination, with another to come 28 days later. That’s a good reason to leave the house, frankly–I can’t think of a better one, to be honest. I’m incredibly lucky to have not gotten it already, frankly–still not entirely convinced I didn’t have it back when I was sick last spring, but the test was negative. I will continue to wear a mask whenever I am out in public–don’t want to set a bad example–and besides, as I have noted before, I haven’t even caught a cold this winter thus far; and that’s a rarity and clearly a benefit of the mask. I may wear one during cold-and-flu season from now on.
Yesterday was an utter waste of time, thanks again to Apple Support. I wanted to print out the latest chapters I’d finished and reread them before I moved on to yesterday’s writing–but when I tried to open one of the files from the Cloud my piece of shit MacBook Air told me that Word was “damaged” and thus couldn’t be opened. I had to delete it from my computer and then re-download it…and guess what? NOT ENOUGH FUCKING STORAGE AGAIN. Um, it was JUST on my computer, but now there’s no room for it? So yes, I spent the entire afternoon fucking with Apple support; eventually having to take my computer back to factory settings and start it over like it was brand new. Hurray! I could download Word again! But the Cloud? Ha ha ha ha! Oh, how cute you are to think that this would help my computer to function. Just like when I bought it, I could not access the Cloud through my Finder window–I mean, I could, but the Finder window kept telling me THERE WAS NOTHING STORED THERE. I even manually went to the iCloud website to sign in–yep, there it all was. So back to working with Apple support. After forty-five minutes of waiting for “Iselda” or whatever the fuck her name was to figure out how to fix it….to no avail, and often telling me to try things I already had done, etc–she had the nerve to say, “Well, maybe it’s still syncing and everything will show up later.” Yeah, thanks for nothing, you incompetent bitch. So, looks like I’ll be taking the piece of shit to the Apple Store in Metairie.
I really do NOT understand why this has to be so hard, you know?
Yeah, I’m bitter. You would be, too. Now I have to try to play catch up.
But I did stop by the library yesterday to pick up Unveiling the Muse: The Lost History of Gay Carnival in New Orleans by Howard Philips Smith, and wow! It must weigh five to ten pounds; it’s enormous. I may have to eventually get my own copy, simply because as a resource it is simply too good to not always have on hand. It has all the histories of the gay krewes and balls, pictures going back decades–and details about gay clubs and not-gay-clubs that gays hung out in; and so many pictures! It was also fun seeing people I know (or knew) pictured within its pages. I really wish I had kept a better diary/journal back in the days when we first moved here; so many friends and acquaintances have come and gone since then. Looking through the book was quite a lovely trip down Memory Lane for me–remembering people I’ve not seen or thought about in years, some of whom I simply knew from the bars and who knew? Some of them were major players in the queer rights movement here in New Orleans. This book is definitely going to come in handy for me with writing fiction about the gay New Orleans past.
It looks like it’s going to be another beautiful day here in New Orleans. I am going to be going to the gym later this morning, and then I am taking Paul to work–we’re stopping at Office Depot to get supplies for his office, and I need paper and an ink cartridge for my printer–and he has a book for me at his office, and then it’s back home to desperately try to get caught up on the book. Gah, yesterday was so damned frustrating.
I was also thinking back over the year (not as effective as one might think, as my memory has really declined over the last few years), trying to remember things that gave me pleasure in 2020. There was an awful lot of good television programs we watched, and of course I have enjoyed the Cynical 70’s Film Festival, which will be rolling over into the new year. I know I read some wonderful books over the course of the year–and I also reread some that I greatly enjoyed and seemed new to me. I also recall reading a lot of pandemic literature in the early days of the shutdown; histories of the Black Death and the Spanish flu, short stories and novels about epidemics…I finally got around to reading Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death”, along with a reread of Katherine Anne Porter’s “Pale Horse Pale Rider,” but I don’t think I got around to Richard Matheson’s classic I Am Legend…but really should have. I also didn’t reread Stephen King’s The Stand, but once I get my own writing needs under control around here, maybe I’ll give the abridged, originally published version a go.
I know I also started writing a pandemic story that I never managed to finish: “The Flagellants,” and finishing it is at the top of my list of things to get done once this book is finished. I kind of also have to go directly into the next book, without much of a break between, but once it is finished on March 1 and turned in, I’ll have some breathing space for a moment or two before I need to get going on Chlorine. I’d really like to have a good working first draft of Chlorine finished by May 1. My main characters is starting to come to me in bits and pieces–he served in the Navy, he escaped Kansas into the Navy when he was eighteen; he comes to Hollywood after he musters out to become a movie star, which is when he meets his “starmaker” agent, and while he is very good-looking and charismatic…he’s not especially talented as an actor, and so gets some supporting roles in A-list movies and leads in B-list movies, but his”star” never really takes off. His agent is of course inspired by Henry Willson; and the plot of the book revolves around blackmail, murder, and survival.
And on that note, I should get back into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader.
It is Saturday and I am also on vacation for a week. Huzzah!
I have a lot to do, of course, as always, and of course, LSU is playing Arkansas today at eleven–how far the mighty have fallen, to be playing a Western division conference game at eleven in the morning on the SEC Network–so I will undoubtedly watch the game while reading, making notes on things I am working on, and trying to get caught up while not getting terribly saddened by the game and how it turns out.
But of course, as always, the intent behind this vacation is to get caught up on everything, which is no easy chore, believe you me. I need to whip the book into shape and get it rolling again; I need to finish a short story that has to be submitted by January 15th; the Lost Apartment is a disgusting pigsty that desperately needs to be deep-cleaned; and I’d love to be able to finish reading The Hot Rock as well as some other short stories. I also have a goal to relax and get rested, which will also be lovely.
I am sort of looking at the vacation as a kind of reboot, quite frankly; a time to snap out of the writing malaise I’ve been experiencing for the last few months and get back into my writing again. Getting caught up would be absolutely lovely, but as I always tend to be behind on everything…it doesn’t help that Louisiana and New Orleans history is so colorful and fascinating that I will often go down a major wormhole triggered by something I come across looking for something else–I spent several days in the wormhole created by having my curiosity aroused by the Mississippi River forts, for example, and came away from it with no story ideas other than an amorphous Sherlock Holmes story and perhaps something more recent, but again, amorphous and not much else. I spent a couple of days immersed in Cajun and Louisiana folklore, looking for something I could use for the Christmas horror story, only to come up relatively empty-handed. I have the opening for the story, still don’t know what the rest of the plot is, and am not convinced I chose the correct Cajun folk story/monster to use–which is part of the reason I decided to give up on trying to get the story finished by December 1st.
I also have a sink full of dishes and papers and files and books stacked everywhere. Not good, not good at all.
Yesterday Rex–the main krewe that still parades on Fat Tuesday, and whose “king” (Rex) is traditionally considered the King of Carnival, cancelled their ball and also announced that, with no ball and no parade this season, they will not be naming a King and Queen this year. This came as a surprise to me–let’s face it, few krewes are as conservative politically as either Rex or Comus (who chose not to parade once the city passed an ordnance not allowing krewes to discriminate in their memberships) so having Rex cancel its festivities is indicative of the seriousness of the pandemic, really. I know a lot of New Orleanian traditionalists were still holding out hope that parade season would happen, but with Rex making this stand you can be pretty certain that the party’s over for 2021. While this is obviously sad–who isn’t sad that Carnival isn’t going to happen?–it also means that 2022 Carnival will be epic and balls-to-the-wall; I also hate that the last Carnival was the cursed Carnival of 2020. The Historic New Orleans Collection has a great article about the thirteen times parades were cancelled over the 150 years or so we’ve been having Carnival here in New Orleans; naturally, now I am thinking about writing something during a cancelled Carnival of the past.
It’s weird when norms vanish, isn’t it? I would have never dreamed Carnival would ever be cancelled, and yet, here we are.
But will people still turn out in costume on Fat Tuesday? It’s still a holiday, after all, and I can, sadly, see people turning out to drink all day and celebrate.
I meant to read some short stories yesterday, even got started on reading one or two, but after I got home from the gym I wasn’t in the mood and so none of them took with me; I hope to do better with that today. I did make it to the gym last evening, and it was lovely. There’s still some tightness and muscle soreness in my back, but it’s not nearly as bad it was originally, and going to the gym actually made it seem better, to be honest. We watched an episode of The Mandalorian last night–this week’s not being one of the stronger episodes, although the story of the Child progressed a little bit (note to producers: more Giancarlo Esposito, please) and then I fell into a wormhole of Ten Minute History videos on Youtube before retiring for the evening. I do feel very well rested this morning, and not especially groggy; which should bode fairly well for the rest of my day. The lovely thing about this abbreviated and bizarre football season is I am not vested in it other than in watching LSU play; and with the game on early today I should be able to get plenty of things done today (in theory, at least); but seriously, if nothing else, I should be able to make progress on my reading.
And on that note, those dishes aren’t going to clean themselves, alas, so it’s time to mine spice. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader.
Wednesday, and to quote Bon Jovi, “we’re halfway there, Oh! Oh! Livin’ on a prayer!”
Yesterday the city made it official: there will be no Mardi Gras parades in Orleans Parish in 2021. It’s more than a little bit shocking, to be honest; I seriously doubted that the City would actually pull the trigger on this. It’s going to be an enormous economic blow to the city, obviously, but it’s the right thing to do. I don’t know how this will play out in the long run, obviously, but I can’t help but feel bad for all the public service businesses and their employees who depend so heavily on Carnival for their income.
I did come up with an idea for the Christmas horror anthology–the title is “To Sacrifice A Pawn” (which I really really like), and the Louisiana monster I am using is a “grunch”–it was difficult not to go with the Cajun Fairy (the fee follay) or the unbaptized babies (the letiche)–but I can always use those at another time. But I am using Redemption Parish–my weird, self-created “haunted” parish that first appeared in either Murder in the Arts District or The Orion Mask–simply because I think it’s a great name for a Louisiana parish bedeviled by supernatural things. (One of the major drawbacks of being “prolific” is trying to remember things that you’ve written and published already; Christ on the cross, it’s not easy) And let’s face it, how much do I love the entire concept of Redemption Parish? I mean, there are parishes named Assumption and Ascension–although no Annunciation, which is a street in New Orleans, and a great name for a parish.
We finished watching the first season of Mr. Mercedes last night, and much as I wanted them to, they really didn’t stick the landing. I’m not sure why they made the choice to de-emphasize the characters of Jerome and his family, or reduced Holly to such a tiny role, but I think it was a mistake. I can also understand the change in what the crazed psychopath Brady’s final target for the climax was–it would be much too expensive and much too hard to film an attempted bombing at a boy band concert filled with teenagers–but it really did, somehow, shift the dynamic and make the climactic finale seem a little less urgent in some ways. The second season requires paying to join Peacock to watch, and as I’ve discussed numerous times already, I am not really up for paying for still another streaming service.
So, today is my last day in the office for a while. I work at home this week on Thursday and Friday, and then I am on holiday vacation next week, starting with this Saturday. I have a lot planned for this week off; we shall see if I achieve any of it. I need to finish two short stories, dive back into the book and get into a groove of writing it so I can get it turned in on time, an of course, the apartment itself is a pigsty. The LSU game this weekend hasn’t yet been either cancelled or postponed, but it doesn’t look very good for them regardless. Arkansas is surging this year (and really, good for them; their program has really slid into the basement over the end of this past decade, and while I am not a fan, you do hate to see it) and they really get up to beat LSU; not sure why they hate us so much, but there it is, and so it wouldn’t surprise me if our four year winning streak against them comes to an end this year.
And with all the short story stuff that’s been going on this year, I was thinking about my next story collection, and started trying to get a table of contents together for the next one. I’d always intended the next one to be called Once a Tiger and Other Stories, but I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s no way “Once a Tiger” will work as a short story (moving it into the novella camp) and so I need a new title; I am torn between using This Town and Other Stories or Neighborhood Alert and Other Stories; but then who knows? I may come up with yet another story in the meantime whose title is better for a collection. The other thing is I keep forgetting stories I’ve written and published, which is very strange–as I was pulling it all together yesterday evening, I know I forgot “Moist Money”, and who knows what else I’ve forgotten in the meantime?
And on that note, tis back to the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader.
Queer and Loathing in America 