Category: cats

What’s New Pussycat?

I can tell you what right now: Sparky wants treats! Nothing new there, of course, but to him it’s what he needs to start his day of being Apex Predator of the Lost Apartment, where no pen or bottle cap is safe, and he does his part to declutter by knocking everything to the floor. He really is a doll. I just wish he liked to cuddle more in the bed. He’ll sleep and cuddle with me in my easy chair–I think this imprinted on him after my surgery, when I slept in the chair for at least two weeks–but other than that? Nope. Even if you take him to the bed and curl up with him, he’ll wiggle out and go under the bed to protect us from whatever might come down the (blocked off) chimney. It was funny yesterday; I’d forgotten to reset the alarm (I’d set it to seven for Monday and forget to reset it back to six Monday night when I went to bed), but I woke up at five, knew what I’d done, and just kept waking up every twenty minutes or so. I finally got up without the alarm yesterday at six, and Sparky was so sound asleep he didn’t hear me get up! I was already downstairs, had cleaned my teeth and washed my face and was brewing coffee when he sleepily staggered into the kitchen with his eyes half-closed, and chirped half-heartedly.

Trust me, Sparky, I know the feeling well.

I was tired last night after work and making groceries, so I collapsed into my easy chair after writing over 900 words. It was a struggle to get those 900 words down, too, but it didn’t trigger one of those oh my God I can’t make the word count for the day and does this mean I am never going to be able to write again and I am going to be behind! You know what? It’s not the fucking end of the world. I wrote 2000 Monday and 900 yesterday. I’ve done over ten thousand since I started a week ago Sunday. Paul was also late getting home, so Sparky and I hung out in my easy chair and I watched the news before reading another magazine from the stack of them here at my desk. Once Paul was home, we watched the US Open for a while before I had to go to bed. It’s very exciting to have two US men in the semi-finals, which means an American in the finals for the first time in a very long time, which is kind of exciting.

We’re in a flash flood warning for the rest of the week (!) as we are supposed to get up to eight inches of rain or more over the next few days. The weekend is supposed to be neither super-hot or excessively humid and will “feel like” fall–so that could mean anything, really. 60s thru 80s, or somesuch. LSU plays Nicholls this weekend, which I am not wild about watching. They’ll either win by a lot and with ease, which is boring to watch (and I inevitably feel bad for the other team) or it’s disappointing because LSU played badly. I’ll probably give in and watch, but will read while I do. I feel pretty good this morning–it was a bit of a struggle to get up, frankly–but it should be a good day as the coffee is kicking in and I am feeling more awake with every moment.

I hope to finish the chapter I started yesterday today; I am having fun with the book even if it is more complicated and tricky than usual (I am trying something challenging); and I am hoping the more I am able to flex my writing muscles and write more and get more into the habit of it my productivity might go up as well. I have all these essays I’ve started over the last year or so that I need to finish, and I also need to write something for the Substack; I don’t think I posted anything last week and if I want to be a professional and grow it as a marketing tool for my writing, I need to be more…regular with it. I can’t blog and write a newsletter essay every damned day, but I can write a blog entry every day and write a newsletter essay every week, even while writing a book. I can feel that I am also starting, from time to time, to get a little anxious about being so far behind on all my writing. I would like to get all of these in-progress stories and essays finished by the end of the year, but am also aware that’s a very ambitious program. I mean, it is possible, of course; everything is, but it may not be realistic. Then again I seem to be past anxiety and stress (yay correct medications!) but I am also finding that I no longer need anxiety and stress to write, which is absolutely lovely. Yes, I did worry a bit about that when my creativity was fallow, and yes, I feel much better about everything in general. It’s amazing what a difference actually writing and creating does for my mind.

But it does, and that’s just a fact. Nothing makes me more aware that I am meant to be a writer than how much better writing makes me feel. It’s also nice to be enjoying it; it feels like I’ve not really had the opportunity in a very long time to savor and enjoy the entire process, and it’s really terrific to rediscover my joy at being a creative. After almost thirty years of being paid to write, I’m finally in a place where I can just kind of enjoy myself and appreciate it more and maybe, just maybe, I’ll even be able to do more promotion when the next one comes out than I’ve been doing for about a decade.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for the day. Have a good Wednesday, Constant Reader, and remember that we’re on the downward slide into the weekend now!

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Cast Your Fate To The Wind

Ah, and here we are, three day weekend in the rearview mirror as we coast headfirst into a Tuesday that is destined to feel like a Monday all day. I set the alarm and got up at seven-ish; an hour later than a work day and really, something completely sensible to do on days off. An extra hour still feels like a treat, and then I have the entire morning to get things done. I washed dishes, made breakfast, wrote two posts, and then dug into the book and cranked out over two thousand words before noon–with the entire day still ahead of me. I wish I could tell you that I worked on some other writing, but I didn’t. I was reading newsletters and magazines that have stacked up (another thing that is stupid–I let magazines pile up, collect dust, and just be clutter rather than simply reading them at first opportunity and then tossing them in the trash–or tearing out an article that may be of interest to me at a later date (can’t imagine how all that paper piled up on me over the years). I am pleased to say I have only three back issues of Texas Monthly (their true crime reporting is stellar) and the latest 64 Parishes to read now. I also watched some news clips on Youtube, fell into a wormhole about the history of the Cathars in southern France and the Albigensian Crusade that killed them all, and finally started reading about the Baptist War in Jamaica–there’ll be more on that at another time, trust me on that– before doing some filing and touching up around here. All in all, it was a lovely weekend, and I am so delighted to be back into the book again (I was worried about picking it back up again after the last few days not working on it), and knowing that my editorial and creative eye is coming back together, too. I still have to get used to my life as it is now, and I know there are going to be bad days that I just need to accept and roll with, and not beat myself up over those sorts of things. Being too tired to write or create is a valid reason for not doing so. It just is painful and the writing isn’t any good, anyway–and it’s not like I need to prove to myself that I can write a goddamn crime novel, do I?

I feel pretty rested and good this morning. We shall see how that develops for the rest of the day. I think we’re pretty busy today; or maybe not; maybe it was next week? We always get busy at the STI clinic after Southern Decadence…which kind of makes me a little proud, because we’ve trained our clients so well that they know about the window periods for the bacterial infections so they wait. (The schedule isn’t that busy; I just checked it–laptop came home with me on Thursday–so yes, it’s next week that is super-busy.) I have to make groceries on the way home from the office tonight; I may be too tired to work on the book tonight but…that’s okay.

Yesterday afternoon I was kind of at loose ends and dangerously close to being bored, when I remembered a conversation at work recently, in which one of my co-workers told me he loves to watch bad movies with a friend to laugh at them, so I asked, as is my wont, if they’d seen Voyage of the Rock Aliens–I have yet to find anyone else who has seen it (I saw it twice in the theater) and so that was in my mind. Right now I can’t remember the brain trail that led me to think of it yesterday, but I did, and the whole movie is up on Youtube…so yes, I rewatched it, and…it really can’t be watched alone to be laughed at properly. Anyway, it was the great Ruth Gordon’s final movie (what an epitaph!), starred Pia Zadora and an incredibly beautiful young Craig Sheffer. It’s a weird mash-up of the bad scifi and beach movies of the 50s and 60s, a lot of the humor is of the time (I’m sure kids today, or even viewers of any age for that matter, would get the Lake Eerie jokes, because the lake was cleaned up), and it’s even more godawful to rewatch after forty years or so. It may even be worth it’s own entry…

We also started watching Kaos, which is demented in a very fun way; a modern twist on Greek mythology. A reboot kind of, if you will. Jeff Goldblum is perfect as Zeus, as is Janet McTeer as Hera. Of course, since it involves Orpheus and Eurydice, it put me in mind of Hadestown, which I saw on Broadway in New York thanks to Mike Ford. I’m looking forward to watching more tonight, if I’m not too tired and Paul isn’t working on a grant the way he has been for the last week or so. Of course, I could unwind with my Alison Gaylin ARC, which I am doling out to myself as a reward for getting things done.

I am very glad that my brain has finally unlocked and I am not only writing again, but writing the way I did before the recent times of troubles. I’m enjoying it, and am having fun with it again. I don’t know if I am all the way there again yet, and I’m not all the way back to normal (or whatever passes for normal in my life) quite yet, but I don’t feel like there’s a dark cloud in my brain and just getting through the day is a triumph anymore. Now that it’s unlocked, I can also see that some of the stories I’ve written over the last four years and not been able to place (or finish)? Now that my mind is more clear than it’s been in a while, I can see what the problems are–the voice and tone of the story. They’re written kind of in a cheery, pleasant tone, and that doesn’t work with what the stories are about. What was I thinking? No, they need to be colder, and more desperate, unsentimental, which isn’t as easy for me as it should be. They need to be harder and colder and crueler, more desperate, in order for the stories to work, which is also pretty cool. I’m so glad I’ve figured this out at long last! I also think part of the reason I made the stories not as dark as they needed to be was because of the shitshow life had become for us all and I didn’t want to write anything dark. My brain was telling me something, wasn’t it?

I also walked to Walgreens to get treats for His Impious Majesty, listening to the My Dad Wrote a Porno podcast and rather enjoying it–it’s really hilarious, you should check it out–when the door opened in my brain and I finally figured out what podcasts actually are: they’re like radio shows of old only with a more modern delivery system. so we’ve kind of circled back around the entertainment my grandparents used to enjoy–radio/podcast, they are basically the same, with the primary difference how you get distributed to listeners, kind of like do-it-yourself radio. Yes, it only took me how many years to figure it out? Heavy sigh. But now that I finally get them, I can start looking for others that could be fun and informational. I just couldn’t wrap my mind around them–sometimes I have to connect newer technology to older so I can understand its purpose. Yes, I am well aware how obtuse I can be, which I think is a part of the wacky brain chemistry that I want to talk to my doctor about. I don’t need medication to control the wandering mind syndrome, as I’ve remembered how to write again, so that’s not an issue. But it would be nice to have a diagnosis rather than simply wondering and self-diagnosing from my reading.

I also started relearning German on Duolingo this weekend, which makes sense. There are crusty memories deep in the recesses of my brain, and doesn’t it make more sense to try triggering my memory rather than starting from scratch with a whole new language. So far, so good. I can order coffee and bread and wine in German now. So, when I am in a German coffee shop I can say, kaffee und brot, bitte.

I didn’t really have much FOMO about Bouchercon over the weekend–obviously, I know I would have had fun had I gone because now I know too many people not to have fun, if that makes any kind of sense to you. I did miss seeing everyone, but my primary regret in not going was not being able to participate in the voting down of removing the DEI (aka inclusion) from the Bouchercon operating by-laws…yes another attempt by a mediocre white man who used to be on the Board and was long associated with it (back in its misogynist, racist, homophobic days where that kind of shit was not only tolerated, but enjoyed) deciding that since he had a problem with inclusion the entire conference should just do away with it. Thanks, Al Abramson, I remember reporting being treated homophobically by programming years ago and you just patted me on the head and basically told me to get over it. Fuck you all the way to hell and back, and don’t think we aren’t fucking organized, you miserable piece of bigoted trash. Can’t imagine why queers felt uncomfortable and unsafe attending your fucking event, and the trash LOC couldn’t even be bothered reassuring us, and in fact, exposed how homophobic the LOC was. But thanks to the alert Board members and some others–CWoC, QCW–rallied the troops, but the Board also refused to consider it and the refusal of this last minute last ditch attempt to make it a Karen-and-Chad conference again. But this is also why we have to be forever vigilant, because there’s always some mediocrity trying to drive out the marginalized.

Must have been a real bitch-slap seeing how diverse the Anthony Awards were.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday that feels like Monday, and may be back later.

Red Roses for a Blue Lady

Labor Day and the last day of the three day weekend and Southern Decadence. It’ll be back to work with me again tomorrow (not going to say huzzah for that, sorry) but at least it’ll be a short work week. Alas, we don’t get another holiday until Thanksgiving, but I may take some time off this fall just to relax and rest and do shit, you know? I am finding these long weekends are enormously good for me physically and mentally, to be honest. I set my alarm to get up earlier this morning rather than letting myself just sleep as late as I wanted to,, and I feel better than I have all weekend sleeping late. Peculiar and strange, c’est moi. But I do want to get some things done today while taking it easy as well. I am trying to put off going to the grocery store until tomorrow; I may be able to get away with just a short walk to Walgreens because His Majesty is out of treats…but maybe it’s better to do it today and get it over with.

It does feel like I haven’t been to the office in an eternity.

Well, LSU lost it’s fifth straight season opener last night, and while I am trying not to get terribly discouraged about the season–it always sucks to start off the season with a loss–because it’s hard to say already how good USC is; so I really don’t have any idea of how good this year’s Tigers are. I had a feeling they were overconfident, and as galling as it is to lose to Lincoln Riley of all people, they could have won the game had they not consistently shot themselves in the foot, over and over, and there were a lot of questionable play calls that left points on the field. It actually reminded me a lot of the Florida State loss two years ago. Anyway, the Tigers have an easy game next week before coming home to play UCLA, so we’ll see how they regroup. I will also say Garrett Nussmaier is a great passer, so there’s potential for a great season despite the early loss. The loss cast a pall over the Lost Apartment, and I went to bed early, planning on rising early this morning, so that worked out just fine.

I had a lazy day around the house yesterday, not really doing a lot of anything. I read some more of We Are Watching, the new Alison Gaylin1 (preorder now, it’s coming out in January) which is marvelous as is everything she writes, before spending some time watching the US Open and news clips on Youtube. My shoulder was still sore from the vaccination on Saturday (it’s still sore this morning, too), and so I thought it best to take it easy and not risk getting unwell from the shot (which has happened the previous shots); or maybe it was my brain leaning into being lazy, which is always its preference. I did think a lot about the book yesterday, and feeling actually kind of excited about it, to be honest. I am trying something with it that’s more of a challenge to me, and that’s really exciting for me. I also spent some time filing yesterday and I did get ahead on the dishes and so forth. Today I can vacuum, if I so chose; but overall I am planning on a mostly low-energy day with lots of Sparky time relaxing in my easy chair. I am also planning on reading some more this morning.

The excitement I am feeling about writing this book has also kind of had a simmering effect on my creativity; rather than bursting with ideas the way I usually am when I am writing a book, I get a new idea but it’s more developed than the usual “just a title and a character and the basic idea,” which is also cool. I am also solving problems with some short stories I’ve stalled on, so yeah, it was a good weekend in that regard, and I am also working on some essays. It’s not like I’m not working even on days when I don’t advance the word count on the book, either.

Social media, such as it is now, is becoming more and more a waste of time that I don’t need to deal with in my life, frankly. One of the major problems is that it’s an election year, which is making people drop their masks with the mealy-mouthed can’t we all be friends despite our politics and the privilege that just drips from those statements just enrages me. The difference between me and the Right is that I don’t want anyone to be stripped of their rights. The Right’s corruption of American symbols has always been more about show than belief; kind of like their religion. I apparently spent a lot more time on Twitter than I thought I did–one never really is truly aware, is one–and now that Facebook is basically circling the drain, too, I am amazed at how much more free time I have. I guess I had become far more dependent on social media than I would have preferred or believed? Yesterday was another prime example of how bad Facebook is becoming. A lesbian writer friend had posted an image of a hideous Confederate flag cake with a joke about marrying your first cousin. Some woman I don’t know took offense, and said that flag has evolved into representing all Southerners.

I beg your fucking pardon?

Yeah, I let the racist bitch have it with both barrels before blocking her skank ass. Was she another lesbian writer? I don’t know and I don’t care, but if she is a writer, if that’s the way her mind works she’s probably a shitty writer as well as a shitty person. NO ONE defends the Traitor’s Flag and claims it represents all Southern people–because it sure as fuck does not represent Southern Black people, and to say that it does is so fucking racist you need to be repeatedly slapped, shamed, and driven out of the public square.

The paradox of tolerance is you cannot tolerate intolerance.

I also figured out what I need to do with Never Kiss a Stranger, and managed to convince myself my inability to finish that book was not a failure, either of imagination or as a writer. I knew how the book ended, and I knew how I wanted it to begin, but I didn’t know how to write the middle. The fact that it also started as a novella that I decided to expand and make longer has something to do with it, too; I kept going back and forth on whether there was enough story for a book or if I should, indeed, keep it as a novella, which can be forty thousand or less. There’s really not a place to publish novellas anymore, so at best I’d be able to do a novella collection or something as I have several others on hand, too–and one is almost nearly complete. Maybe I should include it in my collection of short stories? That would definitely fill that book out.

So, despite not really doing a whole lot of writing over the holiday weekend, I am not chiding or berating myself this morning over “wasting time.” It was a productive weekend, and I am getting better at being kinder to myself. I’m still figuring out the work/writing/life balance, but what I do know is that balance is a lot better now than it’s been in several decades.

And on that note, I am going to get another cup of coffee and repair to my easy chair for some more of Alison’s book. Have a great Labor Day, and never forget it was unions that got us the forty-hour work week, paid sick time and vacations, breaks, and weekends. I may be back later; we shall simply have to see how things go, won’t we?

  1. Part of the reason I am enjoying the book so much–it hit me yesterday–is the writing style/voice reminds me very much of Ira Levin, who I’ve been thinking about a lot lately; been wanting to revisit The Stepford Wives and The Boys from Brazil, especially since JD Vance reminds me of one. ↩︎

Mystery to Me

The other day after work I was too tired to write and so I settled into the easy chair with one Sparky for cuddle time, but needed something to watch. I finished burning through the news to get caught up as I do every day, and then started searching for something else to watch when I saw Scooby Doo, Where Are You? in my “Up Next” list as I scrolled through it. It’s always tricky when I need something to watch on my own without Paul–it has to be something he’s not interested in watching–and at some point over the last four years I started revisiting this show from my childhood but never finished the rewatch–mainly because I am now in my sixties; far too old for the audience they were going for.

While I wouldn’t say Scooby Doo Where Are You? was necessarily a huge influence on me and my life, I did love it and watched it every Saturday. It started sometime after Jonny Quest and The Hardy Boys cartoon was cancelled, and a kid who was devouring kids’ series books by the stacks and checking out every book in the school and public library that had the words mystery, secret, clue, haunted, ghost, riddle, or phantom in the title, the adventures of the Scooby gang was usually the highlight of my Saturday morning cartoon experience. I have not been a fan of anything that came in the wake of the original half-hour show (we will never discuss the abomination/hate crime that was Scrappy Doo), and for the purpose of this entry (and really, in my heart and mind) we will pretend that the show was cancelled after the original series run and nothing was rebooted, restarted, revamped, or overhauled in the years since the original Scooby Doo money train was derailed.

But saying Scooby Doo didn’t cement my interest in mysteries wouldn’t be true. The show did, silly as it was (watching as an adult I couldn’t help but wonder, “why would the bad guys go to such extremes to scare people off?”–which also is a contrivance often used in the Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys type books, too), but I watched it every Saturday morning. I kept watching through the next iteration, the hour long show with guest stars, but after that I was too old and had better things to do on Saturday morning than watch cartoons. I’ve always had a soft spot for Scooby, just as I did for the animated Hardy Boys show and Jonny Quest, and unlike many others, I never see reboots or remakes or re-imaginings as “destroying my childhood” because I am not a moron. I can see how the show appealed to kids–you can never go wrong with a sentient Great Dane with limited speaking abilities–and I remember writing Scooby fan-fic when I was young. I started out “novelizing” episodes, and started writing my own. I’d forgotten about that when I was originally rewatching, but in my head the kids’ series I eventually came up with was linked very much, not only to other kids’ series, but Scooby Doo as well.

I don’t want to adapt Scooby or write Scooby books anymore, but I do occasionally want to go back to my kids’ series and think, why don’t you give this a try? Often times, the reason I don’t write things I think might be fun challenges is mostly cowardice and Imposter Syndrome. Can I really write kids’ fiction? Can I really write historicals? However, writing Jonny Quest might be interesting, especially with a reading of the Quests as a queer family.

One of the things about Scooby Doo that always interested me as a kid, and continues to interest me as an adult: Velma. Velma was clearly the smartest of the gang1, which was fun and unusual, and Daphne (‘danger prone Daphne’) wasn’t dumb despite being the pretty one, even though she often needed rescuing. Over the years the character of Velma was really interesting to me–being a brain, of course, meant she had to wear glasses and was hopelessly far-sighted–because she wasn’t easily scared and she was often the one who figured everything out. It was also interesting to me over the years to see many people read Velma as a coded lesbian, which begs the question why? She never has any interest in the opposite sex, but none of them do, really–it’s not that kind of show. We have no background on the gang, either–how are they able to just drive around the country at their age without having to check in with parents, and where does their money come from?

Of course, this is asking a lot out of a children’s cartoon series, which is also why I find it odd to revisit these shows looking for queer coding, and you can usually find it. The all-male environment of Jonny Quest, which is also a kind of “found family” show or Velma not being a late 1960’s/early 1970’s stereotyped girl are good examples of this.

I’ve always wanted to do a reread of all the kids’ series (I still have the books) to reread them for queer coding. I’ve already mentioned before that there was homoeroticism in both the Ken Holt and Rick Brant series–deliberate or not, it’s hard to say–but does this exist in the more popular Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books. Is tomboy Trixie Belden a budding butch lesbian, with Honey her future femme wife? What about cousins Bess and George in the Nancy Drew series, who are also almost a parody of butch/femme dynamics?

This is the kind of stuff I would love to write–critical queer theory about kids’ mystery series, books, and television programs.

Maybe when I retire.

  1. Calling themselves that also always amused me, since gangs usually are criminals of some sort or another; gang is usually mean that way, even though it’s just a descriptor for a group of people with a similar interest. ↩︎

Mr. Tambourine Man

I was actually cruised yesterday!

I was more startled than anything else, to be completely honest. I had an appointment at 11:30 at the CVS on the corner of Magazine and Louisiana (where the Blockbuster was when we used to rent movies and TV shows on video or DVD) to get my new COVID booster. I made another stop on the way there, to pick up a prescription, and then headed over to Louisiana Avenue for my shot. I had actually never been inside that particular CVS (the one on Prytania is only a few blocks from the mail service and thus more convenient for me to go to), and it’s actually a nice place. So, I checked in for my appointment, and when I was directed to the privacy screen for my shot, this incredibly lovely young man in his early twenties got in the Pharmacy line. Our eyes met, and tilted his head to one side as he smiled, and I thought, as I sat down and the pharmacist closed the screen, I thought, was he cruising me? As I sat there, I thought nah, way too young and besides, I look like shit. I got the shot, which I didn’t feel (shoulder was sore later on in the evening, though; still is a bit this morning), and as I rose to go, the guy was still in line and gave me the same look, only along with the eyes up and down first, and he was indeed cruising me. I kind of laughed to myself as I walked out to my car–I would have definitely pursued this when I was younger–and remembered again how oblivious I am to that sort of thing outside of gay bars. I always was. It never occurred to me that people might cruise me in public spaces that weren’t exclusively queer; friends had to tell me all the time, “That guy was cruising you!” It certainly isn’t anything I’ve even thought about for years, so it was definitely a compliment and I couldn’t help but laugh at myself as I shook my head and started the car, “you know, some younger men like older men, dumbass.”

So, if anyone is ageist, it’s me!

Yesterday, outside of the shot and some other errands I ran, was a lazy day for me. I didn’t do a whole lot of anything; I scribbled in my journal some but the book is beginning to take shape, which is lovely. I pretty much spent the entire day cuddling or playing with Sparky while watching college football games. It was delightful seeing Georgia humiliate Clemson and Miami annihilate Florida, and Texas A&M gave Notre Dame a scare last night. Tonight LSU plays USC in Las Vegas (GEAUX TIGERS!) and we’ll get a better sense of how good this year’s edition of the Tigers are. And Tulane won big, too! We haven’t won a season opener since Joe Burrow graduated (2019 season), so hopefully that will change this year. I think I am going to do a lot of nothing today, too–I’m going to clean the house and write for a while since the game isn’t until tonight–which feels good. I slept super late again this morning and have to think my body needed the rest. I feel good this morning, the coffee is hitting and I don’t feel tired or sore physically (other than the aching shoulder from the booster yesterday), and that way if I can get everything cleaned up, organized and filed today gives me tomorrow to run to the grocery store and write.

I did bite the bullet and renewed the digital version of the Times-Picayune, despite the paper’s descent into a MAGA propaganda machine. I need to be able to read the state and local news, and much as I love local independent reporting, they don’t have the capability to cover Louisiana/New Orleans like Louisiana Sedition can. And I am leaning, more and more, into the concept of writing environmental crime stories so outsides can see what is going on here in Project 2025 Land. I am absolutely fascinated now by the Devil’s Swamp Lake superfund site just north of Baton Rouge, and I’m also researching a short story called “The Haunted Bridge”1, which is over Bayou Tortue (sometimes referred to as “Bayou Torture” on some websites I’ve seen; which is also a good title), and has a ghost story about a young woman whose prom date raped and murdered her on the bridge and threw the body into the bayou; that could be fun to write. God, it’s so nice to be excited about writing again and being creatively engaged.

Oh, and congratulations to everyone who won awards for their crime writing this weekend at Bouchercon–Barrys, Anthonys, and Macavitys all! We didn’t win for School of Hard Knox, but the nomination in and of itself was a lovely thing. It was my eighth (!!!!) Anthony nomination, which is pretty amazing, I think. I’m definitely the most nominated queer at the Anthonys! And we did have a queer winner last night; Kristopher Zgorski shared the Best Short Story Anthony with co-writer Dru Ann Love, which is awesome. Yay for Dru and Kris! They do so much for crime writers, and it’s fun to see them getting started as crime writers themselves, and getting recognition of their own.

It does look like it’s going to rain today–we didn’t get hardly any yesterday, or maybe I’m confusing yesterday and Friday; it’s entirely possible. And this kitchen is an absolute disaster area this morning, so I’d best get going on getting things cleaned up around here so I can do some writing. Have a great Sunday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later.

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  1. Yes, that’s a Nancy Drew title, and it fits two stories I want to write about–the one mentioned here and the Murder Bridge outside Emporia, Kansas. ↩︎

This Diamond Ring

Work at home Friday, and the eve of the three day Labor Day weekend. It’s Bouchercon in Nashville and Southern Decadence in New Orleans, and I am not leaving my house today. It’s going to rain all day, for one, and I am a little worn down from the week. That’s normal, thank God, and maybe I am getting the point where my routine is becoming, well, routine. I’ve commented endlessly here how weird it is that I’d start the week tired, and get more rested and energetic the deeper into the week I’d get; so it bears commenting that this week was kind of normal, getting more tired rather than energetic as the week wore on. I managed to get home from work yesterday between storms, and alas, it looks as those it’s going to rain all weekend, which sucks if you came to New Orleans to hang out in the streets of the Fruit Loop to have a good time. But we gays are nothing if not a problem-solving make-the-best-of-everything people, and I know folks will have a great time while they are here. I was too tired to write anything last night, which I figured would happen, and it was fine. Paul and I mostly watched the US Open, then I watched the CNN interview with the Democratic nominees before going to bed relatively early; I did some things around the kitchen last night before going to bed. I definitely need to clean it/straighten it up today before doing my work-at-home duties.

I was tired.

I am glad that I am about to have a three day weekend; I’m even more delighted that it’s going to rain all day–with thunderstorms, which are my absolute favorite. I do love the rain here, and I probably write about about rain far too much in my books, but rain is definitely one of the things that you can’t ignore if you’re writing about New Orleans. This entire book I am writing now is around a tropical storm that I’ve invented (Clothilde) and I am torn between making it a tropical storm or a Category 1. I also want to try something different with this book, making it more of a challenge to write, but we’ll see how that goes. It’s so nice to feel excited about writing again, Constant Reader! Huzzah indeed! Now if I can get my brain rejiggered to start reading again, all will be well in my world. Paul also is going to be out of the house all day–meetings and so forth–so it’ll just be me and the Demon Cat Sparky. I can live with that, I think. Paul’s also going to bring pizza from Midway on Freret, which is amazing. Huzzah! No worries about making dinner tonight!

As you can tell, I woke up in a pretty good mood this morning, which is always a lovely thing. I feel rested and awake this morning, my coffee tastes amazing, and Sparky is galloping around playing with a bottle cap (no need to buy His Majesty any toys when he’s fine with either an empty box or a bottle cap). I have a meeting at ten to start my work day, and I am just going to take it easy, answer some emails, and pick up around here before that rolls around. I am hoping to finish Chapter Three of the book today–I’m at a transition, and I did start moving on from where I’d left off on Wednesday, but only a paragraph before I petered out. I want to finish Three and possibly start 4 today, and then tomorrow before I write I’ll go ahead and review what is already done and add some things and probably take some out. I also need to start rereading the backlist, and this weekend might be a good time to tackle that Scotty Bible I’ve been wanting to, and maybe make some progress on the copy edit of Jackson Square Jazz so I can get that back into availability. Next year Scotty turns 22, Jackson Square Jazz turns 21, and maybe I can celebrate the longevity of the series around its original publication date. I have the time now to promote myself more, and that’s kind of what I need to be doing. I’m also having to get used to having free time that’s not just blowing things off for a day or two, and that means getting used to not feeling guilty for taking a day off from my writing career to let my brain rest.

It’s weird not having all that outside pressure on me anymore. I mean, I’m still grieving, of course, but it’s nothing I can’t handle anymore, and of course I’m still not entirely recovered physically from the surgery yet (my own fault, for not pushing myself to do my rehab exercises the way I should have–see? There’s always something I can beat myself up over). But it’s also incredibly freeing, and of course last year was one of those awful years that happen in my life from time to time. Yet I’m always reminded that I’m still overall pretty lucky. How can anyone complain when their dreams have all come true?

I also concluded yesterday (Katrina anniversary–which may have accounted for being tired yesterday; there’s still residual PTSD around that date) that I am going to start paying more attention to Louisiana’s horrific policies and our monstrous governor and his rubber-stamp legislature, and perhaps addressing them? I’ve never written much on here about how horrible living in the Project 2025 testing ground can be–but at least I live in the big blue dot of New Orleans, so I am spared the worst of it. There has yet to be a stare-down between the city and the state but I do know our city council is very defiant and anti-Landry’s fascistic tendencies, which makes me love this city all the more.

And no one has yet explained to me how having the Ten Commandments displayed in public school classrooms will fix the roads and the levees while reducing poverty and illiteracy in Louisiana. I suspect I’ll be waiting a really long time…interestingly enough, of all things, LSU is defying the governor, who issued a ridiculous executive order demanding college and university sports teams cancel scholarships for athletes who are not present during the playing of the national anthem before the game. LSU’s football team would all lose their scholarships because of this; the tradition in Tiger Stadium is the band goes out and plays the Pregame, then the National Anthem, and then the band makes a tunnel for the team to run out on the field while the band plays another one of LSU’s fight songs (there are quite a few, and several were written by Huey Long). Decades of tradition and pregame hype vs. expelling the entire team?

Yeah, Landry’s not going to mess with the football team–or any of the LSU teams, really.

And on that note, here comes today’s first storm, and I am going to get cleaned up and head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later!

I’ll Never Find Another You

Wednesday Pay-the-Bills day has rolled around yet again, which I remembered last night as I finished putting away the groceries. It had slipped my mind, which has been primarily focused lately on being creative. I had a good day yesterday at work, and though I wasn’t tired yesterday, I was oddly sore. I did make groceries after work yesterday, which was not as challenging as it usually feels after work. I came home, put the groceries away, played with Sparky, then sat down to write at the computer.

And I am feeling smug again this morning. Yes, that means I did clock just over three thousand words on New Scotty, and I did it in under two hours! It’s beginning to look a little bit like Gregalicious is back in the groove and back to writing again. And how do I know this is the way it always used to be? Because I am not thinking about writing anything else. I’ve not given a thought to anything other than this book since I decided to try writing another Scotty on Sunday (two days ago? Wow! I’ve already got over six thousand words on this!), and it’s still all I can think about. The plot is forming as I write and I am also thinking ahead about the story, and I really like the direction the story is taking. I’ve also started the book with a body in chapter one, which I don’t think I have ever done before? It’s kind of cool, and I’m actually excited about the book for a change. I don’t think I can actually remember the last time I was excited to write a book is rather telling–either of how miserable I’ve been for so long, or I just don’t remember because my memory is nothing but trash now. (My memory is trash, not my memories are all of trash. Big difference.)

I also added another five hundred or so words to my essay on masculinity.

So, it was a good night last night. We also finished watching Solar Opposites (highly recommended) and then I repaired to the bed. I am still a bit sore this morning–lower back, not entirely sure what is causing that, but it may have to do with my feet and shoes again. I need to make that appointment with the podiatrist. I also need to see a dermatologist, too. I shall do so today during some downtime, methinks. I also don’t really need to pay the bills today–nothing is actually due until the 1st, which is Sunday, I believe. So, that can actually wait. All I really need to do is make those appointments, pick up the mail on the way home, and then I can settle in and do some more writing tonight. I did have a moment of imposter syndrome last night, thinking about the book and what I had written so far. I also dismissed those thoughts rather quickly and easily.

It’s supposed to rain today, with a high of 89; not sure how that’s going to feel and/or work for the day, but everything looks clear outside. It would be great if it rained. The river is low again and there’s a chance that the saltwater is going to start intruding up the river again the way it did last year (which seems like it was a million years ago). There are also two tropical disturbances out there, with the potential to become the late August nightmare hurricanes we’ve gotten so used to around here. I am looking forward to the three day holiday this weekend, and even more delighted to see LSU’s football season start this weekend on Sunday night. It’s Decadence this weekend, and I am not on condom patrol duty this year. This used to be my favorite time of year, actually; I looked forward to it every year and tailored my workouts and so forth in order for my body to peak physically for this weekend. I don’t miss that, honestly, nor do I miss the insecurity it always somehow dredged up before I’d hit the Fruit Loop for the weekend…where I’d forget about being judged for my body and looks and relaxed and had fun. But I definitely remember being worried about how I looked every year before heading to the Quarter for the first time. I do miss being hit on and flirted with, in all honesty; I always enjoyed that, perhaps a little too much. I am not going down there this weekend–too hot, too many people, too old to stand or walk around for long–and plan on having a good writing weekend while also getting some good rest. And reading! My writing time is now overlapping my reading time, but I can read this weekend, can’t I?

And on that note, I am bringing this to a close. Have a wonderful Wednesday, and I rather doubt that I’ll be here later again, but one never knows.

Unchained Melody

Sunday morning in the Lost Apartment and yesterday was a rather lovely day, in all honesty. I didn’t put any pressure on myself, but did make some progress on the apartment itself. I cleared out two boxes off the top of the cabinets, and know now what the others are–and know they can simply go into the attic once it is cleared out. This means…I am getting to the point where I can start working on the attic. This pleases me enormously, and there’s some other stuff that needs to be done here in the workspace this morning before I make a minor grocery run. We watched this week’s Bad Monkey, which I am loving, and then some more Solar Opposites. I also managed to get a week’s worth of dishes taken care of–I was really lazy and taking advantage of the entire “birthday week” excuse this week, I am a bit red-faced to admit–and reminded myself to never let it get that bad again…which will last probably about a week.

I also watched the Georgia Tech-Florida State game. I simply flipped over to it while looking for a movie to watch (to no avail; nothing sounded good) to see the score, and saw the end of the second half with the score tied 14-14. That intrigued me enough to continue watching, and it turned out to be a rather good game, as Georgia Tech kicked a field goal on the last play of the game to upset #10 Florida State, 24-21. It was a great game–I do sometimes watch college football when I don’t care about either team–made even greater by the upset win for Georgia Tech (I am not a FSU fan), and that kind of got me into the mood for football season. LSU’s first game is this weekend; Sunday evening in Las Vegas, of all places. I have no idea how good LSU is going to be this year–I am not one of those people who reads analysts and so forth and practice reports; they are meaningless really until it’s actually a game and they’re keeping score. I prefer to be surprised, and college football is always full of surprises. I don’t even pay attention to the NFL preseason, either.

I wasn’t a complete sloth yesterday. I did do some things around the house, and looking around this morning, there’s more that needs to be done. I’m not used to having all this free time, which is the primary adjustment I am having to make in the present day…and it’s kind of nice, you know? I still need to figure out how to be more productive, and how to utilize the time, but I worked so hard for so very long and never had a minute’s peace for so long that it’s just kind of nice to not be worried about things anymore. I plan to spend some time this morning straightening up the kitchen again, and picking things up and filing, and I also want to do the floors. I didn’t leave the house yesterday so I have to make that grocery run today (to make dinner tonight I have to go), but that’s not a big deal, really. It’s nice, though, to not be stressed and anxious about not working in my free time.

I even thought about writing projects yesterday. I am really leaning towards shelving Never Kiss a Stranger for now; I realized yesterday it was one of those stupid “stubbornly obsessive” things that I get into my head every once in a while. I remembered yesterday that originally I had intended to finish my novella collection this summer, which meant working on that, and then I realized it was more of a book than a novella, and decided to write that for the summer. And even though I was having trouble with it on almost every level of turning what I already had into a novel, I was stubbornly refusing to shelve it and move on, which was counter-productive. No one cares if I finish that book now or at some other time, or if I never write it at all. So, I am going to put it aside for now and forget about it for a while. It only makes sense to get back into regular writing with a Scotty book, and a Scotty book will be somewhat easier for me to write…and easier for me to get back into the swing of writing again after so much time away from it.

I also realized that the MAGA meltdown over Gus Walz was an excellent way to open my essay “Are You Man Enough?”, and so I did scribble some notes on that yesterday as well. I am actually kind of looking forward to this work week, believe it or not, and I do think getting to work on another Scotty–Hurricane Season Hustle–will be a lot more fun for me going forward.

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

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Help Me Rhonda

Well, I got up late this morning and I don’t feel the least bit sorry or shamed at my sloth-like behavior this morning. I feel rested–I slept very well, thank you very much–and am up for a lovely day today. Bouchercon is in Nashville this upcoming week, and I am sure I will be terribly envious when I see the posts and pictures that will start appearing on my social media soon. It’s also Southern Decadence that same weekend, an odd confluence of things I really (or used to) enjoy. Years ago that would have been a very difficult choice to make; now, I am not doing either.

Sparky is feeling rambunctious this morning; he just tipped the recycling over and if I look over at the can, all I can see is his tail sticking out amidst the clean, rinsed out plastic bottles now scattered over the floor.

I had a good day yesterday. I got my work-at-home duties done, then ran my errands and tried to get the house back under control. I was also a bit lazy about everything, too. Paul stayed at the office late last night so I rewatched some old movies I love (Star Wars, Body Heat) which were as much fun as ever–although I’ll never understand why Body Heat wasn’t nominated for any Oscars, especially for Kathleen Turner (on the other hand, she was only nominated once, which was a crime and a definite oversight, and the film she was nominated for was not one of her best). That was kind of nice, actually; I may watch another movie this afternoon while Paul is off doing whatever it is he does on Saturdays (trainer, gym, office), something old and classic that I’ve never seen; or maybe some wonderful old noir that I’ve already seen, like The Strange Love of Martha Ivers or In a Lonely Place. Both are marvelous, and both are definitely worth watching again.1

Today I am going to run a box of books over to the library sale, pick up the mail, and stop at the Fresh Market to get a few things for the weekend (fresh meat, gourmet jelly beans to which I am now horribly addicted, maybe some veggies),and then tomorrow I am going to go to the gym in the morning and then spend the rest of the day at home. I’ve decided to make groceries on the way home from work on Monday, and I want to read and clean and maybe even write today (madness, right?). I’ve been thinking about the next Scotty, and may start working on that today. I did make a to-do list that I need to check, and I know I wanted to get some of the boxes down from the tops of the cabinets and maybe even a box out of the attic, go through them, and decide what to do with the contents. I also still have a drawer in the filing cabinet to organize–and the entire cabinet needs to be alphabetized; I used to try to separate files by what their purpose was, but I think I am just going to merge it all into one big alphabetized cabinet and be done with it; it will certainly make finding things easier.

And God knows, making things easier to find for me is a definite plus.

And on that note, I think I’ll head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and since my day plans are so amorphous, I may be back later. It depends on how lazy I am feeling today!

  1. Although thinking about Kathleen Turner has me thinking about rewatching Romancing the Stone, which is one of my favorite movies of the 1980s. ↩︎

My Girl

Work-at-home Friday this morning, and Sparky let me sleep a little later this morning before getting insistent (the swipes at the face have claws out more). So here I sit, with my first cup of coffee and the weather is supposed to be cooler today; we’re having a cold front. Hilariously, the local weather source I use said today is “false fall” because it’s only going to be ninety…temperatures here are definitely skewed over what most of the rest of the country experiences. I also slept very well last night, deeply and restfully and through the night, which was lovely and kind of why I feel so good this morning. I have some things to get done around the house today in addition to my usual work-at-home duties, and some errands to get done later as well.

The DNC concluded last night, and while the evening had a different vibe than the rest of the week, it was lovely seeing the Exonerated Five calling out the demented Martyr of Mar-a-Lago did my heart very good (reminder to self: watch When They See Us) and the Vice-President’s acceptance speech was incredibly powerful. There were other speakers–the young Black congressional candidate from Alabama was amazing; as was Elizabeth Warren (and it was great seeing her get her flowers from the crowd)–and so were many of the others. I feel very hopeful about the future for the first time since November of 2016, and that’s saying something. It isn’t going to be what we hope, and the Republicans will fight her agenda every step of the way with their lies and smears and general awfulness; those of us who can remember the rise of the racist Tea Party will have to continually remind people of who and what they are. The MAGA movement has always been toxic and most Americans have always seen it that way. But like the Know-Nothings, the Whigs, and the Federalists, MAGA just needs to die, and can we but hope that this election will finish that anti-American racist movement once and for all.

A fine example of how awful they are is their reaction to, and treatment of, Gus Walz; whose emotions overcame him during his father’s acceptance speech, burst into tears as he jumped to his feet with love and pride and shouted “that’s my Dad!” on camera. Anyone who saw that and wasn’t moved and touched touched by this testament to the strength of their family love (and what amazing parents the governor and his wife are) is a soulless, craven monster. The same people who’ve been screaming that “Barron is off limits!” (as were the Bush twins) but then went after a seventeen-year-old? You’re trash, and Barron is no longer off-limits, as far as I am concerned; these are the same people who called Amy Carter ugly and Chelsea Clinton the White House dog…not to mention all the racist hate they threw at the Obama girls. Imagine being raised in the Trump family; what choice did the kid have to be anything other than a sociopath like his tragic older half-siblings?1

But we’re supposed to ignore the Right’s children and leave them alone, like the sociopathic Palin children, or Lauren Boebert’s felon son “because the kids are off-limits” until a new Democratic candidate comes around with kids and the story about politicians’ kids change.I am tired of Republicans and the media holding the Democrats and the left to a standard of behavior that is never applied to the Right. They are literally the biggest hypocrites of all time, and it’s past time they get dragged for the filth they are. Ann Coulter’s attack (now deleted) on Twitter about Gus Walz was about what one can expect from the talking heads on the Right. MAGA already hates her for turning on Trump, the Left hates her because she’s always been a horrible woman, so who exactly is listening to her nowadays anyway? She never is on television any more because no one wants to watch, and she’s no better than the irrelevant TERF bitch in Scotland. I can only imagine the kind of toxic environment/household she grew up in. I had started writing a book a while back where I killed off a Ann Coulter-type character; I’ve hated that woman for years. Maybe I should find that manuscript…

This weekend my goal is to do some reading and writing. I can’t believe it’s almost Labor Day already. I’m not sorry to see this brutally hot summer come to a close (I never am) and of course, I love the fall, with the cooler weather and it being football season. Plus, I can no longer use the heat as an excuse to not get things done!

And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines to get my work-at-home duties completed. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back later.

  1. And for the record, I am also tired of people making victims out of Republican wives. They are exactly where they want to be. Melania could have left at anytime, and so could Usha Vance. But they are craven grifters just like the men they married. They deserve no consideration from us. None. They are not women like Hilary Clinton or Michelle Obama or Rosalynn Carter. They are the modern-day equivalent of Klan wives who falsely accused young Black men and got them lynched. Save your sympathies for the women he assaulted. ↩︎