Category: cats

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.

Dangerous Type

Sunday morning in the Lost Apartment, and i am dealing with a hyperactive cat that wants to play so keeps leaping on me, claws out. I feel good and rested this morning, no fatigue, and so I am hopeful for a productive day. Paul will be gone most of the afternoon for a board retreat, so I am hoping to be able to get some things done.

I love my new vacuum cleaner, period. I’ve never had much luck with them; the last two or three I bought never worked that great to begin with and then stopped picking up anything entirely after only about six months of use. So, since the last one–and yes, I tried fixing them–stopped working, I’ve had to sweep the rugs and shake them outside, and they never ever felt truly clean. Well, I put the new one together yesterday and used it in the living room. I am very pleased. It looks so clean in there now…I am going to use it in the kitchen this morning so long as Sparky doesn’t make me bleed out before I can. His claws are SHARP. So I did some great cleaning and organizing yesterday, and will hopefully finish the downstairs today.

I can’t seem to find my phone this morning, either. There are worse things.

Yesterday morning I ran my errands, and then came home to work on the house while playing highlights of LSU football from past years on Youtube (I also sometimes watch when I am in a dark mood; the highlights are my happy place). I tried to read for a bit as well without much success, but that was from being mentally scattered as I tried to work on the house, too, listening to the highlights in the background, and occasionally sitting down to rest and watch for a moment, as I still had some physical fatigue working on me yesterday. But it was so nice to come downstairs this morning to a living room with a clean floor. It’s amazing how much of a difference that makes–just like how much cleaner it looks inside when the windows are clean. It’s too hot for me to clean the windows for at least another four weeks, but I am really looking forward to it.

In a little bit I am going to go read The Hunting Wives for a little while before getting cleaned up and buckling down for a good day of cleaning and writing and reading. I also want to work on an essay on El Dorado Drive by Megan Abbott for my newsletter–if you’re wondering, I’ve decided my book/television show/movie reviews belong on my newsletter. So, if that’s why you pop by here, and have been wondering why it seems like I’m not writing those anymore, I am–just in a different place.

I also want to start rereading Hurricane Season Hustle, since I am going to be getting back to work on it relatively soon. I have so much writing to do!

And on that note, I am going to go read for a bit and thus bring this to a close. Hope you have a happy and lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and will be back in the morning tomorrow.

I love Venice, and would love to go back.

Bye Bye Love

Saturday! Sparky let me sleep a little later this morning, but I still have some physical fatigue this morning. I seem to be mentally alert, but the physical shit is weighing me down. We did run errands after work yesterday, including Costco (I got a new vacuum cleaner for my birthday next week), and when we got home from everything and everything had been brought in and put away, I was done for the day. I spent most of the evening being a cat bed and watching documentaries on Youtube about history. Paul eventually finished his work duties and we watched the most recent Platonic, which I love.

Today I have an errand to run and groceries to order for delivery. I want to spend some more time with The Hunting Wives, which I started Thursday night, and my other current books. I need to clean the apartment, too–it’s a slovenly mess–and would again like to get some writing done today as well. I have to say getting groceries delivered might be the best thing to come out of the illness–now I never want to set foot in a grocery store for an extended period of time; I don’t mind dashing in for a few things every now and then. It’s much better that way and I can always swing by the one in the CBD on the way home from the office. I also need to assemble the new vacuum cleaner, so I will probably spend some time getting the floors taken care of, and it’s long overdue.

I certainly am enjoying my coffee and breakfast this morning. It’s already bright and sunny outside, which is lovely and probably means yet another heat advisory. August is flying by, and I really need to buckle down and get my act together. The fatigue and lethargy has been brutal this summer, and I have to understand that I will probably never go back to the way I was before I got sick. Which is also fine; I have nothing to prove to anyone anymore, and certainly not to myself, do I?

I picked up some new books Thursday on my way home from the office: the new Chuck Tingle (Lucky Day); She Didn’t Stand a Chance by Stacie Grey; and Dogs Don’t Break Hearts by ‘Nathan Burgoine. I also need to prune the books again, don’t I? It’s been a hot minute since I dropped off a donation box at the library. Part and parcel of the cleaning/organizing process, isn’t it? I still am a book hoarder, but I’m getting better. I certainly am not buying as many books as I did before. I really do need to make progress on the TBR stacks and piles all over this messy, overly dusty place.

And when the heat and humidity break, I am going to clean my filthy filthy windows.

I also have another newsletter to write this weekend.

And on that note, I am going to head over to my easy chair to read more of my current reads before running my errands and getting cleaned up and starting on the house. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back, most likely tomorrow morning.

The goddess Isis guarding the Canopic Shrine of Pharaoh Tutankhamen

Since I Held You

Ah, another work at home Friday and man, was I fatigued yesterday. I’m hoping that sleeping late this morning and tomorrow will knock the last of the fatigue out of my system. I was more mentally alert in the morning than I’d been since the infusion, but the brain wiring started sparking and malfunctioning in the afternoon. I do hate when that happens, and my legs get super-tired and my feet feel like I’m just dragging them along for the ride. Most unpleasant, actually. Needless to say, I didn’t run any errands on the way home last night, but after getting caught up on the news once I was home, I started doing research again on the 1970s by watching Youtube videos. (It’s amazing how much I’ve forgotten about the 1970s.) Today after work we’re going to go to Costco and run some various other errands, which means I’ll probably be exhausted again tonight. But that’s okay, I feel rested (my legs are still fatigued, though) and it’s always nice to get up to a cat alarm than to the horrible electronic beeping tones of an alarm.

I was kind of bummed there wasn’t a new episode of South Park this week, and I have to say, between the show and Gavin Newsom, I think this marks a sea change in the country. Turns out the MAGArbage doesn’t like being treated the way they’ve treated other people for the last ten years. Aw, they’re needing safe spaces like the precious, unique little snowflakes they are and always have been. But the masks are off them now permanently, and their narcissistic tantrums about “their” country and their “true” patriotism.

Sorry, if you try to overthrow the government, you’re not a patriot. And have we forgotten “Let’s go Brandon”? You’re not a patriot if you’re trying to cram your beliefs and values (such as they are) down the throats of everyone. You’re not a patriot if you celebrate and applaud violations of the Constitution. You can fetish worship symbols you don’t understand (for the record, wearing the flag as an article of clothing is also considered a desecration) all you want, but that doesn’t make you a patriot, especially if you don’t understand and appreciate what they symbolize.

And for the record, I am not about forgiving and forgetting. Straight white people, if and when this horrible period actually ends, will be all about that… just as they were after the Civil War. They always prefer to support other white people than oppressed minorities, to the detriment of the country, and we just wind up back where we were yet again because so many white people won’t address their bigotries and prejudices.

And as for Jillian Michaels, she has always been a garbage person. Anyone who calls herself a “gay woman” instead of “lesbian”? That’s kind of telling. She wants to join, and only associate, with the rich conservative cisgender white gays1. I do take some consolation in knowing that her unspeakable vileness means she is miserable and unhappy; it’s written all over her face. She must really be bitter that she can’t shame and embarrass overweight people on national television anymore. She was a disgrace to the fitness profession, and she’s a massive embarrassment of a human being. I hope she marries someone just like her and forgets the prenup. Irrelevant and useless, why does being a hateful bitch on television make her an authority on history and politics? Because she once had a reality show? Bitch, please.

This week, Taylor Swift announced, on the Kelce Brothers podcast, that she was dropping a new album, The Life of a Showgirl, in October. Yesterday she released the four alternate covers of the album, one of which is this:

One of the covers for Taylor Swift’s new album, The Life of a Showgirl.

She looks amazing, doesn’t she? But of course, trolls (who really need to get a life) did what they usually do whenever she does anything. The cover above was shared on social media by some bitter pill of a man in Houston, saying “She has young fans! How is this appropriate?” I personally have seen more skin on the beach or at a pool, and sometimes in the French Quarter. Yes, this is the problem, not a president who’s in the Epstein files for child rape, or all the youth pastors, or preachers, or priests arrested on the daily for raping kids. No, Taylor Swift in a Las Vegas-style showgirl outfit–on theme for her album–is the real problem2 kids are facing today.

God give me strength.

I am pleased to report, however, these zeta males were thoroughly ratioed and dragged in the comments…I don’t understand this sick need some people have for negative attention and being humiliated on-line (probably bots, but in some cases they are actually people), and probably never will.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I will most likely not be back until tomorrow morning.

  1. The Log Cabins are vile, period. ↩︎
  2. Where is all the upset about kids possibly finding out about Laura Loomer and “Arbys in her pants”? Give me a break. ↩︎

Shoo Be Doo

Thursday morning, and I am awake with my mind alert for a change–but my body is still fatigued. Hopefully getting to sleep a little later tomorrow will make a difference in the degree of fatigue I’ve been experiencing this week. This is actually the worst it’s been after an infusion, so hallelujah that this was the last one! I’ve not been able to get much of anything done around here after work–I fell asleep just after eight again in my chair, only to go up to bed around nine thirty. I did sleep well, but probably needed to stay in bed a few more hours, methinks.

We were also busy in the clinic yesterday, which didn’t help the fatigue, but I made it through the day unscathed. I did get a lot done there, too. I think we’re busy again today, but the morning is pretty slow and easy, so I can get caught up on my paperwork. I think tonight after work I’ll come straight home. I skipped the grocery store last night, but picked up the mail and my prescriptions, so that was a plus. I’ll probably have some groceries delivered over the weekend, as I am out of some things. I also don’t think I am imagining how much prices have gone up lately. Wasn’t that yet another broken campaign promise? I mean, I thought inflation was all Biden’s fault, wasn’t it? Here’s hoping we’ll have a robust mid-term election next year…although I suspect we’re never going to have another one. I would be delighted to be proven wrong, for the record, but nothing the Fascists do anymore surprises me. What surprises me is when they do something decent without an ulterior motive…and I am still waiting to be surprised.

Despite the mental fatigue I was experiencing when I got home last night, I did manage to park myself in my chair and catch on the news. Christ on the cross, what the fuck is wrong with this country (rhetorical)? I heartily enjoyed reports on Gavin Newsom’s tweets yesterday, and the utter insanity of Laura Loomer’s deposition in her defamation suit against Bill Maher. Future generations will (hopefully) look back at this time and ask, in all seriousness, what the fuck was wrong with everyone? Which leads me around to an essay I am writing about Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, and how that history has always been distorted to blacken Anne’s reputation as well as who she was; imagine if the only reports for future historians about you were your absolute worst enemies…even those who admired her were too afraid to say anything positive about her after her fall. I also saw somewhere on-line recently a comparison between Henry VIII and our own unspeakably vile president.

This is why studying history is, in my opinion, so vitally important–but it’s equally important to keep an open mind as well. Context also matters.

I probably should have been a historian. The problem, though, was all of it interests me; I don’t know that I would have been able to decide on a particular period to focus on. The smart thing for me to have done would have been to double major in history and creative writing, with a minor in either French or German. Although I probably would have focused on the sixteenth century, which has always fascinated me…French would have been the wiser course because it was the diplomatic language of that period, so a lot of the source material would have been in French.

Is it just me, or has there been a lot of flooding all over the country this year? I haven’t paid as much attention to it all as perhaps I should have, but at least I’ve made note of it. The Guadalupe River floods in Texas were kind of hard to escape, as everyone seemed to be covering that story. But it seems like every day, or at least every other day, whenever I log into my browser I see pictures of devastating flooding somewhere in the US. Flooding is so awful and it’s never fun to lose your car and/or your home and most of your belongings.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I will be back in the morning.

The Temple of Abu Simbel, statues of Ramses II

It’s All I Can Do

Tuesday and all is well in the Lost Apartment. It was, indeed, lovely having yesterday off. I had my last infusion yesterday, and yes, I was fatigued when I got home. I swung by the Apple Store while I was out in Metairie, and came home to finish reading Megan Abbott’s brilliant El Dorado Drive (more on that later). Last night, we tried to find something to watch but just weren’t in the mood for anything we found that looked likely for us; we actually started watching two things that I’d forgotten we’d already watched! I decided to read the room and went to bed early. I didn’t want to get up this morning, either. I am feeling fatigued this morning–physically, not mentally–which will certainly make today a challenge. The coffee is going down well and that’s always a good thing. It looks pleasant outside the windows this morning–but it’s probably like soup out there.

El Dorado Drive was classic Megan Abbott–noir to the core, and about the complicated, complex relationships between women. This time, the women are sisters, all born within the space of four years or so, who grew up wealthy and privileged…until the auto industry cratered and they are having to deal with, well, not being rich anymore and not really knowing how to handle the poverty. All of the sisters owe money–the eldest’s husband is dying of cancer; middle sister Pamela is going through a horrible divorce; and youngest sister, Harper (who also is a lesbian) is barely scraping by…so of course, they are the right audience for a get-rich-quick scheme that is simply too good to be true (isn’t everything easy?). I loved this book, and couldn’t put it down yesterday. I read it through my entire infusion, and then picked it up once I was safely home to finish. I will do a more in-depth review for the newsletter, methinks.

I also decided to move on to The Hunting Wives next, leapfrogging it up to the top of my TBR stack because I want to read while my memory of the show is still fairly fresh in my head. I bet there’s not as much sapphic activity in the book as there was on the show, but I am very hopeful the book isn’t terribly different from the show? I will report back, of course, once I have the answer. I also started my reread of Shirley Jackson’s Life Among the Savages and The Secret of the Red Scarf. I did a load of dishes but forgot to turn on the dishwasher. Must remember to turn it on before leaving for the office.

Tonight I am going to stop and make a small bag of groceries on the way home from work. I don’t need much, just coffeecake, cat treats, and Tylenol PM. I also need to balance my checkbook and pay some bills. Pay-the-Bills Day is tomorrow, but some are due today that I’ve not paid yet. Must do that today, as well as update my checkbook. There were a lot of Barbara Michaels and Elizabeth Peters ebooks on sale the other day, and I downloaded all of them (I need to stop buying ebooks on sale…).

I also need to do some writing tonight after work.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll most likely check in again in the morning.

Don’t Cha Stop

It was supposed to rain this morning, but the sun is shining and the sky is bright blue. I slept well again last night until Sparky got me up this morning, wanting his breakfast. (He is such a sweet boy.) I had a lovely day yesterday, actually. I ran my errands in the morning, ordered groceries to be delivered last evening, and had a pretty nice day overall. I finished rereading my Jay Bennett and Barbara Michaels novels1, and hope to finish reading the Megan Abbott today. I also watched a lot of television while doing chores and reading before falling asleep in my chair last night after a nice, relaxing day. Here’s to having another today, right?

Netflix has a new show about the 2024 SEC football season called Any Given Saturday, and so I watched about four episodes of that while Paul slept on the couch. It’s very well done, and while I don’t feel it pays enough attention to LSU–and what there is focuses on games they lost (really? No coverage of the amazing upset of Top Ten-ranked Mississippi?)–it is nice to see the stories on the other teams and get a recap of the season. The show, of course, is hype for the upcoming season; the pro pre-season is already under way. I think LSU can be really good this year, but LSU always manages to find a way to LSU. There are only two episodes of the show left–we switched it off to watch Wednesday, which we also didn’t finish last night–that I may have on in the background this morning while I read.

I think I am going to go ahead and spend some time with the news and my coffee this morning before finishing this. I’ll be back momentarily, Constant Reader. (According to the weather, we should be having a thunderstorm in five minutes, which I don’t think is going to happen, given how it currently looks out there.)

It’s now noon, and it never rained here. It does look like the calm before a storm outside my windows at the moment, but I’ve already closed up my wagon and put it away (I’d left it out last night after the delivery) just in case. I got cleaned up–even shaving–and that woke me up and made me feel being productive for a while. I put Any Given Saturday back on to stream, getting through the last two episodes while reading more of El Dorado Drive and marveling at what a fucking MASTER Megan Abbott is; she may be the best writer publishing today, and is definitely in the top tier without question. I also picked out my next reads: the reread will be Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson2 and the juvenile/young adult will be The Secret of the Red Scarf, which belongs to a close-to-forgotten girls’ series featuring Nancy Drew rip-off Kay Tracey, and I won’t decide on the new new-to-me read until I finish the Abbott–I’m currently torn between Mia Manansala’s latest or Disco Witches of Fire Island or Lev AC Rosen’s Rough Pages; all queer authors, I might add.

But The Hunting Wives might win the race in a photo-finish.

As I finished off Any Given Saturday, I found myself very curious about the lack of coverage for Texas, Georgia, Oklahoma, and Auburn, among others…and LSU and Alabama were only covered in reference to their games with South Carolina and Vanderbilt, period. Was it about getting some of these lesser-known programs more coverage? And it’s definitely difficult to cover 16 teams with any degree of depth and certainly every team had a story to tell this past year. But it definitely whetted my appetite for the return of college football, which was its intent, so mission accomplished, Netflix.

I’d forgotten we’d watched Towards Zero in between the SEC show and Wednesday; I’d seen bad reviews of it so was curious as to what we would think of it. I remembered the story as soon as I saw the geography of the setting, which is crucial to the crime, and yes, I was proven correct in the third episode. It was fine, if perhaps not really needing a third episode? It did feel like it was dragged out more than it needed to be, which is not a good sign for a murder mystery.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I need to do some picking up and organizing and cleaning, and I am also going to write for a while before probably returning to the Abbott. I doubt I will be back later; I may finish a newsletter today and I may not. If not, I will be here again in the morning before the infusion. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader!

  1. I will write newsletters about both authors at some point. ↩︎
  2. I’ve always wanted to write about this unique Jackson book; I usually reread The Haunting of Hill House every October. ↩︎

My Best Friend’s Girlfriend

I’ve always thought today’s title, an old classic by the Cars, would make for a great y/a title. What if a gay teenager was in love with his straight best friend (it happens), only to have the best friend get a girlfriend the gay kid suspects is evil, as in occult evil? No one believes him because they think it’s jealousy…this story always springs to mind whenever I hear the song.

And that first album by the Cars is still a jam, almost forty years (!!!!) after release.

Saturday morning here in the Lost Apartment, and Sparky let me stay in bed later than usual, which was lovely. I am slurping down my first cup of coffee and have already had my coffee cake, probably moving on to cereal in a moment. I do feel good and rested this morning. I took it easy after work yesterday, simply sitting in my easy chair and morphing into a cat bed for a worn out purring kitty. I finished watching Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time, which I really appreciated. I did get a little teary when listening to the experiences of the people who couldn’t leave and the clusterfuck of the response to the catastrophic levee failure (which failure was lain entirely at the door of the US Army Corps of Engineers, where it belonged), and the response was entirely a systemic failure. It also went after the media reporting, which was wrong and caused problems for the efforts to rescue people and get them out. I did remember how angry the reporting by the legacy media made me (fuck Fox News and their racism now, then, and forever) because I had a flash of anger again at the incompetence. I’m glad I watched, but I will never stop mourning the New Orleans that was before, or the people we lost. I also decided to go ahead and write a twenty years later essay for the newsletter. Last night as I watched, I was trying to remember what I actually did write about Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath (besides the blog): my novel Murder in the Rue Chartres; my essay “I Haven’t Stopped Dancing Yet” and a shorter, edited down version called “I’m Still Dancing”; and the short stories “Annunciation Shotgun” and “Survivor’s Guilt.” I think part of the reason I wrote so little about Katrina and the rebuilding was because I didn’t want to be defined as a writer by the storm.

But I think there is another essay about Katrina inside of me that I need to write. I may start writing it this weekend, but we shall see.

I do have to go pick up some prescriptions and some groceries while I am out, and I am going to potentially order some more to be delivered this afternoon. I also made good progress on chores yesterday; I did all the bed clothes, and a load of dishes that needs to be put away, and I also cleaned off my kitchen counters. I also picked some things up around here, too. I want to write and read today, too–once I finish this I will go to my chair and read for a bit before I go run those errands and get them out of the way so I don’t have to leave the house tomorrow. Monday is my last infusion and I took the day off so I can come home and rest and read some more. Huzzah? Huzzah! I think we’re probably going to move on to watching Wednesday’s second season tonight, too.

I do feel good this morning–the cereal was an excellent choice, but now I need toast–and so I am hopeful I’ll be able to get some things done today. So, I probably should put some bread in the toaster and bring this effort to a close for the day by heading into the spice mines for the rest of the morning. Have a lovely and terrific Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back either later today or again tomorrow morning.

Adorable out gay Olympic gold medalist in diving Tom Daley of the UK

Moving in Stereo

Good morning, Constant Reader! Hope you sprang forth from your bed wide awake and a-rarin’ to go, because today is Wednesday! We’ve made it to the halfway point again this week! Huzzah! Although this week hasn’t been terrible, other than being tired when I get home from work every day. I feel oddly more awake and alert this morning; not sure what that is about, but I am not going to argue with it, either. I’ll ride this wave as long as it lasts before petering out at shore.

It rained off and on for most of the day and it was gloomy a lot yesterday. I am never really sure what’s going on with the weather when I am at work; my testing room doesn’t have a window, and I don’t get near the windows on the floor very often. But a couple of clients were wet from the rain when they came in, and the few times I was around the front desk I could see the rain. It was nice when I made groceries after work, but it started sprinkling when I got home and it rained for most of the night. I got very tired yesterday afternoon, just as I was getting ready to head home. (I did cancel one errand I was going to run because I was tired, but was very proud of myself for making groceries.) I also did some writing work when I got home, too. Yay for me! I’ve not really experienced the page opening and me falling into it yet1. I haven’t had that experience in quite a while; which I think is what has been fueling the Imposter Syndrome2 of the last few years. But I am slowly doing more and more, and my creativity, despite being covered in dust and cobwebs, is getting better, too.

I slept well again last night–trust me, I do not miss insomnia–and could happily go back to bed this morning. It looks like a sunny morning out there, and the forecast shows no rain for the day.

Then again, yesterday’s forecast said no rain until the evening, too. They’re inevitably always wrong here in the tropical season.

I do think being tired affects my ability to write, because now when I’m tired physically, I also am tired emotionally and mentally.

Being Tuesday, I made tacos for dinner last night when I got home and in spite of being tired, I managed to do the dishes before making dinner. Paul came downstairs, and I queued up Unspeakable Sins, which continues to be a rollercoaster ride (spoiler: the only decent character in the show is the escort; everyone else is kind of awful but so fun to watch) and we’re over halfway finished. There were two more kidnappings and now everyone knows the faked death was actually faked and Claudio is still alive–and last night we did find out who was behind everything going on. I kind of suspected that character already, and they just became a lot more interesting! One thing I have noticed about this show–I noticed it right away–is how they’ve embraced the physical beauty of Andres Baida and how much the camera sexualizes him in a way usually reserved for women3. He is shirtless in every episode at least once, and we generally see his bare ass every episode too–and how the camera lingers on his body is the way it usually does on women. His introduction to the viewers was him rising from a swimming pool in tight little square cuts, slowly revealing his muscular form as it rose, shining and wet and dripping, out of the water. Last night there was an episode where he was being tortured for information by a ruthless gangster. His wrists were chained together, his shirt was gone, and his arms were straight overhead, the chain holding him up. He looked like he was being lifted right out of his low-rise pants which were barely hanging on, his face and torso covered in oil and sweat and some blood, and it looked almost like a scene from a gay bondage porn film.

And tonight Wednesday drops. Huzzah!

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning.

I always thought Michael Newman was hotter than David Hasselhoff on BAYWATCH.
  1. Callback/shout out to Misery by Stephen King. ↩︎
  2. Whom we are no longer listening to under any circumstances. ↩︎
  3. Make no mistake, I am on board with the sexualization of men in film and television. ↩︎

All Mixed Up

There are three “disturbances” out in the Atlantic with the potential to develop into tropical systems. None are a threat to the Gulf Coast (at least, not yet), but we are heading into the time where hurricane season is super-busy. This year is also the twenty-year anniversary of Katrina, so I’ll be avoiding all the coverage of that for the most part. Even after twenty years, it’s still hard for me to watch any of that stuff–but maybe this year I should break the power of the PTSD and watch it all. It was such a horrible time, truly…but we did watch that show about Memorial Hospital (Baptist). But twenty years on, maybe it is time to watch some of the coverage that I pointedly ignore every year. I dunno, we’ll see.

Yesterday I felt a little under the weather–stomach again–which had me concerned that I was having a reoccurrence of the colitis, but this morning I feel fine, even well rested for a change. I managed to get a lot done at work yesterday, which was great, and I made groceries on my way home. I was tired when I got home, but I wrote for a very little while before Sparky’s need for attention wore me down and I went to my chair. We watched some more Unspeakable Sins, which is such an amazing rollercoaster ride. More has happened in the seven or eight episodes we’ve watched than happened in an entire season of Melrose Place. Nobody does soapy thrillers quite like the Spanish language production companies. So far, we’ve had a failed blackmail seduction, two kidnappings, one faked death, and several criminal syndicates–and of course, lots of videos of wealthy and prominent people at sex parties. We also have a teenager whose stepfather got him addicted to drugs and abused him.

That is seriously one fucked up family.

We’re finally out of the heat advisories, and the maximum temperature for today is 89…which is low for August but I’ll gladly take it. Rain (gasp) is also in the forecast. The rain is predicted for late this afternoon, around when I’ll be coming home, actually, so no errands tonight for sure. I didn’t want to get up this morning, but…that’s really nothing new on a work day, is it? This is a slow week in the clinic (next week is busy busy busy), which is nice, since we’re having a site visit tomorrow. I think I have everything done that I need to have done for the visit, which was the entire goal for yesterday.

I am feeling good about most everything and am not being critical of myself for not pushing myself harder, you know? I’m also kind of still adjusting to life again, which seems to take longer to do the older I get, and seems more necessary as well more often. This has not been a great decade for me, and I can definitely state that my sixties haven’t been the best so far (I’ve pretty much forgotten the fifties, in all honesty). But the inexorable passing of time continues, as the sand in my hourglass continues to run, and my instincts are telling me to make the most of my time, so…sure, I get the I don’t want to’s still, and of course, the temptation of recharging with Sparky in my lap is always there, but I know I can get the work done when I put my nose to the grindstone.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow.