Category: childhood

Hitch a Ride

Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment and here we go, launching into a three day weekend. I was still a little drained yesterday when I finished work yesterday, so I ordered groceries and worked on chores and ignored the Internet. It’s lovely to disconnect once in a while to let my brain heal in order to face another day–and social media is becoming less and less fun (when was the last time it was truly fun?) and more emotionally disturbing. It’s also rarely helpful in dealing with any of the shit going on right now, either. I ordered groceries and just kind of rested while doing chores. There was a shit-ton of laundry to do, and dishes and…and…sigh. As I said yesterday, Sisyphean tasks indeed. indeed. But Paul brought dinner home–Chinese; I love me some shrimp lo-mein1–and we watched the LSU-Georgia gymnastics meet when he got home from his day before moving on to an episode of Run Away, which has definitely taken some turns on its journey to episode six. We’ll undoubtedly finish it today, with only two episodes left to go. I went to bed relatively early and slept very late this morning, which goes to show how tired and run down I was feeling. I’m a little worn still today, but I have lots of things to get done over the course of the weekend. I had planned to run a bunch of errands today and get them out of the way, so I wouldn’t have to do anything outside the apartment for the rest of the weekend, but when I woke up I wasn’t so sure if I would run them or not….but as the coffee and coffee cake kick into gear again for me, I might just be able to do that.

I’ve really started enjoying writing the newsletter, but it takes longer to write those entries than it does the blog, you know? I shoot this off every morning when I am drinking my coffee and waking up every morning, in less than an hour and think about my previous day and what I want to get done that particular day, what I watched and read and am looking forward to enjoying while putting all my “reviews” (books, movies, television shows that I want to get more in depth about) in the newsletter….as well as writing about my own past and the books and movies and things that inspired me, shaped me, and influenced me into who I am as a person and as a writer, which is very fun. I am in the midst of one about my lifelong interest in ancient Egypt and trying to remember where that interest originally sprang from. I’ve watched some interesting documentaries about ancient Egypt recently; ones about the three Golden Ages of ancient Egypt as well as one about the Ptolemaic dynasty, who have also always interested me (Cleopatra VII, the one we all know, was the last Ptolemy).

I also started writing some newsletters about Scotty and the upcoming release of Hurricane Season Hustle (available for pre-order; drops on February 10). The story behind the book might prove interesting to others beside me; on the other hand maybe not, but it’s also a kind of interesting example of how some book ideas can take shape and form even when it takes two decades. This was originally supposed to be Scotty IV, but things changed and now it finally is Scotty X, which is wild; how are there ten books in this series that started out as a stand alone?

I have to go to Office Max to buy envelopes so I can send out copies of the new book to the people I always gift them to; the mail; a prescription; and two different grocery stores. Heavy heaving sigh. That is probably going to wear me out for today, but if that’s the case, I’ll just clean and read and watch documentaries. I think Paul is going to be at the office this afternoon, or upstairs working, so I should be able to get all this stuff finished before I settle in for the day to read. I think I’ll dive back into The Secret of Hangman’s Inn today, and bust back into the Eli Cranor tomorrow. Pretty cool, methinks.

And on that note, I am going to get cleaned up and head into the spice mines. Have a lovely holiday Saturday, and I’ll be back in the morning.

  1. Which is probably not even Chinese but American Chinese… ↩︎

Smokin’

Pay the Bills Wednesday has somehow rolled around again, and yes, there are bills to pay and errands to run and all of that fun stuff for me after work this evening. It was cold again yesterday, but this time I was smarter and wore layers. I don’t think it was as cold in the office yesterday as it was Monday…but again, that could have simply been layers. It’s also not as cold this morning as it has been, and I am wondering if I should do the layer thing again today anyway; the office has been horrifically cold this week for some reason. A quick check of the weather app on ye olde phone and no, it isn’t going to be in the forties. I slept well last night, so I feel very rested and awake this morning–a pleasant surprise, actually. I came straight home from work yesterday, and of course, had to play with and cuddle with Sparky, as he won’t be denied. I got caught up on the horrible news before watching another episode of Run Away, a particularly twisty show we are enjoying, despite the annoying male main character’s toxicity, and then it was off to bed for me.

I also managed to get my latest newsletter (which you can read by clicking here if you so desire: America America), which is about my passion for US History and watching the Ken Burns documentary, The American Revolution, which I watched last month and enjoyed. I also found it timely–it reminded me and its viewers of the noble principles of freedom and liberty from oppressive government with which this country was founded–in spite of its legacy of enslavement and genocide, we’ve never really achieved the democratic utopia the founders envisioned (because of the enslavement and genocide)–and whatever this is that we’re living through is about as far from that utopian (for white men) ideal as we ever have been. The so-called “melting pot” theory of the United States has always been kind of bullshit, hasn’t it? The nation of immigrants that slams the door shut on immigration? Just horrific.

Scott Adams, the sad tragic piece of shit who blew up his successful career in comic strips by being very publicly an asshole and turning off the majority of his readers, died this week from prostate cancer. However, as a true MAGA believer he of course distrusted medicine and used quack medicine from quacks to treat it, only for it to not work and to start proper treatment too late: a suicide by stupidity, if you will. The only reason I mention this is his death triggered a post on social media by Kevin M. Kruse, noted US historian, reminding us all of Bill Amend and Foxtrot, a strip I used to absolutely love but had forgotten about, so I subscribed to get his weekly Sunday strip. Huzzah! (Adams, a bottom-feeding scavenging scum piece of shit, also converted–in theory, anyway–to Christianity to save himself from the flames of hell…which is the thing about Christianity that is so bogus to me. You can live your life as the most hateful asshole on the planet, convert on your deathbed and still go to heaven? While someone else, who spends their entire life doing for others and helping people, will go to hell because they didn’t convert? Fuck that shit.)

Which again begs the question: which Christian franchise is the real one? Sigh.

But over all, it’s been a pretty good week overall, as we head into yet another three day weekend.

Erich von Daniken also died recently, which was kind of weird; I was surprised he had only just now passed, to be honest. I have been outlining an essay around the subject of weird takes and lore, beginning with Chariots of the Gods and going on to the Bermuda Triangle and numerous other strange books about strange theories or occurrences that I read a lot about when I was growing up and how those weird books–many of which I didn’t really buy into because of the poor scholarship and lack of actual evidence. But they were interesting ideas and theories that triggered my imagination and anything that does that is worth reading.

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

More Than a Feeling

Sunday morning after yet another low energy Saturday. I slept late again and did next to nothing yesterday, other than a couple of errands (more on that later) and a load of laundry. I spent most of yesterday hanging out with Paul and Sparky and watching television; there was a gymnastics meet that LSU competed in as well as the figure skating finals for men’s and ice dance. That was my entire day, really, and I also was lazy enough to let everything slide, so I have a messy kitchen and living room to deal with this morning. I didn’t read, and we didn’t watch much of anything else other than some news and other clips on Youtube between the gymnastics and figure skating. I do feel more rested today, which is a plus, and I slept late again this morning, too. No worries, I decided yesterday that regretting sleeping longer than usual is counter-productive. I need to rest, and it’s not laziness if you want to sleep later. One thing I need to unpack and process and get over this year is the fear of being thought lazy–and you’re not lazy if you’re not doing something productive every minute and second of every single day. (Thanks, Mom!)

I have no idea what today is going to be like and I am not really making definitive plans for the day. I do need to update my to-do list, make a grocery list, pay some bills, and I do need to do something about the kitchen/living room. I did notice the other day that the barricades for St. Charles’ Carnival Slalom Course are already out on the neutral grounds on the Avenue, which is going to be fun driving down on my way home from work during the parade weeks as I rush to get home before they close the Avenue off, sealing those of us who live in the Box off from the rest of the city. I forgot to bring home boxes from work to pack up more books for the library sale, having finally reached the acceptance phase of knowing I’ll never read all the books I have on hand and should give someone else the opportunity to read them. I paid for them already, after all, so the authors have gotten a royalty from me so why not let someone else have them, right? Books aren’t for decor, they are to be read and enjoyed and shared, and I no longer need to have books stuffed on every available surface and into cabinets and the attic and so forth, to feel comfort. I always used to be afraid I’d run out of something to read and so always needed a big TBR pile. I don’t need that anymore, and I will never run out of things to read so long as I have my iPad.

I also don’t have the anxiety that drove the book hoarding anymore, either.

I see that the Virulently Anti-Black Queens offered a non-apology yesterday that went over almost as well as their racism and misogyny did in the first place. I believe people when they show me who they are the first time, thanks. I also loved seeing gay white men telling Black people on social media what is and isn’t racism. Way to beat the allegations that we’re racists, guys. It also pisses me off because I always want to support queer people and their art, but I can’t be supportive of problematic gay men, especially when they target Black people for disdain and contempt that is clearly rooted in white supremacy–there are plenty of white gay men who think because they’re marginalized they can’t be racist. Au contraire, mon frere–being marginalized yourself doesn’t mean you can marginalize and belittle others because you’re white or have proximity to whiteness. Do better, people. I’m not perfect and make mistakes all the fucking time–but I also try to take responsibility for my words, and learn. We all have to unpack things we learned and absorbed from the culture and society we were raised in–those things aren’t our fault entirely, but not unpacking them and clearing them out of our psyches IS.

It’s not really that hard to look at other demographics through a lens of humanity first, and it really shouldn’t be that difficult for all of us to be more empathetic and to call out dehumanizing behavior and language.

When I picked up the mail yesterday, my box o’books for Hurricane Season Hustle had arrived. And while it’s always a thrill to get said author copies–that never gets old–I did have a bit of a pang, thinking Yay! followed by Christ, where am I going to keep these? That was a new reaction, and probably due to not having the anxiety anymore and being more pragmatic about the book hoarding. The kitchen was too messy to take a picture of the box o’books to post the way I always do; so I’ll have to get some work done on the room before I can unpack the box and do my usual routine with the books.

And on that note, the kitchen isn’t going to clean itself and Sparky wants my desk chair for his morning nap, so…I am going to close this and head into the spice mines, whether I want to or not. Enjoy your Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning before work.

Old Town Road

So this is Christmas! Hope everyone has the kind of day they desire; as for me, I am staying inside all day and being a lazy slug, which is exactly what I did yesterday, and it was absolutely marvelous. I didn’t even read anything; I wanted my brain turned off completely and didn’t even want to think about anything or everything. It was nice. I feel really rested and relaxed this morning…Sparky started demanding I get up about six, but he’s actually sweet about it. He’ll try for a bit, and when I don’t get up he’ll cuddle for a bit, but every time I move, he’ll try again for a little while before going back to being cuddly. I don’t have the heart to tell him that his being cuddly makes me want to stay in bed all the more…

Cats are marvelous pets, really.

We got very heavily into our binge of Down Cemetery Road, which we are really enjoying. I’m going to have to read the book it was based on, written by Mick Herron–someone I’ve not read yet but is really recommended by almost everyone I know who has read his work. Emma Thompson is terrific, and I hope this gets another season; there are four books in total about Zoë Boehm. She’s going to be a favorite at the Emmys, deservedly so. I also started watching the 1995 Canadian Hardy Boys series, but turned it off after five minutes because it was terrible; the Hardy Boys/juvenile series groups I belong to despise the show, but I wanted to give it a shot, as they tend to not like anything that is even slightly different from the books…but in this instance, they were absolutely correct. I then started a German/South African adaptation of another juvenile series I enjoyed, The Three Investigators and the Secret of Terror Castle, which has a very young Cameron Monaghan playing Bob Andrews, but I didn’t finish it, either–despite a very strong start, I was too fidgety yet to commit to watching anything other than Youtube videos until Paul got home from having his hair colored.

A most exciting Christmas Eve, was it not?

I also did some chores–laundry, dishes, the kitchen–but for the most part, it was exactly the kind of day I wanted and needed, and here’s hoping that today will be the same. I won’t start making the turkey in the slow cooker until noonish, so we can have it for dinner tonight as we finish watching Down Cemetery Road. I’ll probably start making notes for my end of 2025 recap soon, too.

And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close. Have a wonderful day, no matter how you spend it or what you do with it, Constant Reader, and as always, thank you for stopping by!

At a glance this guy reminds me of Pete Buttigieg.

Baby Now That I’ve Found You

Monday and back to the office with me this morning. I only have to go into the office today and tomorrow this week; the schedule is absurdly (almost ridiculously) light in the clinic for the next two days; somehow I’ll make it through to my lengthy holiday weekend. I feel good and rested this morning, too. It was a very lovely and peaceful weekend, and I managed to get a lot done (and I am not qualifying that anymore by decrying what I didn’t get done). Baby steps to a healthier me, which was one of the goals for 2025, wasn’t it? As a new year looms, it’s also time to start thinking about my goals for 2026…

Yesterday was rather nice and lovely. Sparky let me sleep in yesterday morning, and I did some chores throughout the course of the day. It was, as always, lovely to come down this morning to a mostly clean kitchen, with only a few things left to do tonight when I get home to reestablish order in the kitchen. Now that I’ve got the downstairs under control again, it should be a lot easier to maintain, which means I can spend time cleaning the stuff I never get around to–baseboards, windows, etc.–and I should probably take the car to the car wash at some point during the holiday weekend. I’ll have to still run errands, of course, but after I get Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve–we’re getting a deep dish pizza from That’s Amore out in Metairie–I should be able to spend Wednesday and Thursday without having to go anywhere. Huzzah, indeed! It was also gorgeous outside; it was in the high seventies when I ran yesterday morning’s errand. I think it’s going to be similar today, too.

The Saints won, which is three straight wins after a disastrous start to the season, which helped set the tone for a nice day. I also started reading yesterday, easing into reading Eli Cranor’s Mississippi Blue Forty-two and Bruce Campbell’s The Secret of Hangman’s Inn, the sixth Ken Holt mystery–both of which start very well. (The homoeroticism rampant I remember from the Ken Holt series is also on full display in the opening chapter, too.) I finally finished my newsletter about Laurie R. King’s O Jerusalem yesterday, too, and if you are so inclined, you can read it here. I have another one I want to do about General Hospital; I’d already started one months ago, but Anthony Geary’s death made it seem a bit more timely now than it was before (I hadn’t known they’d killed off Luke Spencer on the show, either, when he retired–in case he wanted to come back. Not that dying on camera on a soap means anything, of course.); I’d watched the show as a child with our babysitter, but got back into it when Mom started watching after we moved to Kansas–and I came back to the show when it was Number One rated and firing on all cylinders…which was before many people today were alive.

Another yikes, right?

Speaking of yikes, what the hell hath CBS wrought with the hiring of the ultimate mediocrity, Bari Weiss, to run their news department? That town hall with EriKa KirK was an absolute joke–and from everything I am seeing and hearing, their progress down the path to hell has no good intentions to pave their way. One thing that the last ten years has brought with it is the loss of any credibility that mainstream legacy media had; they’ve utterly abdicated and shat all over the legacy of good journalism and the First Amendment. They will never recover any credibility, and maybe that’s a good thing? I don’t know, but this all goes back to Reagan; today’s monster was conceived in his rotting brain, and that was where it began.

We did watch Murder in Monaco this weekend, which was quite interesting and fun; about the murder of Edouard Safra in Monaco in the late 1990s. I remember reading Dominick Dunne’s reporting on the case in Vanity Fair back in the day, and of course, Dunne suspected that the male nurse (arrested, tried, convicted) was being framed by the “black widow” Lily Safra, who had an earlier husband also die under very mysterious circumstances. This update on the case, with more revelations and more information on the aftermath that is very enlightening, is very interesting.

I also worked on some short stories yesterday, which was pretty awesome. I am trying to get some stories ready to submit by the end of the month, and so yesterday I worked on fleshing them out and making them stronger. The three I am working on, and hope to finish and submit, are “Even Katydids Dream,” “Come Sail Away,” and “No Security Provided.” I also have a historical story to polish for another anthology, and I think I am going to try to hit up both EQMM and AHMM in the new year with new stories. Very fun, indeed.

I also paged through Creole: The History and Legacy of Louisiana’s Free People of Color, from LSU Press, edited by Sybil Kein. There’s so much about Louisiana and New Orleans history and culture that I don’t know, and if I am going to write stories (and/or novels) set in New Orleans history, I need to understand it and have more knowledge of it; and this collection of historical essays about the Free People of Color, and how old Louisiana/New Orleans society was structured, will help me with that. (Although paging through it yesterday made me see some seriously archaic and racist language, which I suppose should be expected when reading about the past down here.)

I am looking forward to the holiday vacation, in all honesty; even if I don’t get as much done as I would like (which is very likely, since it always happens), but it’s also nice to have an easy time of it during the holiday season. And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for the day. Enjoy your Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow, on Christmas Eve Eve.

Remind me again, MAGA and Fox News, how Christmas is “under attack.”

Crazy Arms

Sunday morning and all is calm in the house. I feel good, very well-rested and cheerful, which of course is lovely. The Sparkster let me sleep in till almost eight, and now I am finishing my first cup of coffee and have already had this morning’s slice of chocolate marble swirl coffee cake (can’t imagine why I can’t lose weight, can you?), and am about to get another cup of coffee. I did get some things done yesterday, which is cool, and have more things to do today as well. I have one errand to run later this morning, and I’m going to get that out of the way, come home and get cleaned up and get back into working for a bit. Yesterday was a lovely day. I worked some more on the apartment, and delved even more deeply into my renamed main character in the current work. I’m also going to try writing it in the first person present tense, which is going to be really hard for me. (I tend to always use first person past tense.)

The best part of writing a book is this part–even if a lot of this background work never makes it into the finished part.

I’ve been listening a lot to old Fleetwood Mac albums in the car lately, and while they’ve always been my favorite band of all time–every album is a gem, in its own way–when I go for a while without listening I sometimes forget why they are my favorite band of all time. This past week I was listening to their Christine McVie-less recording from the early aughts, Say You Will, which is really good, but kind of Buckingham Nicks 2.0, really. I also like watching Youtube videos of young people listening to their recordings for the first time, and appreciating the artistry, talent, sound, and production values. Rumours will always be my favorite album of all time, and my favorite album of theirs, but the others are also excellent and merit more listening.

We watched this week’s episode of Heated Rivalry, which was probably the best, and most engaging, episode of the show thus far (I loved episode 3, spoiler alert); the first time I cared whether the main characters were just fuck buddies or a couple slowly falling in love. I still have some thoughts about the show, some quibbles as it were, mostly about relationship roles and the feminization of bottoms, but that can wait till I’ve finished watching the show and review it for the newsletter. (I’m still bitter about the cancelation of Boots, but…they also could have seriously fucked up a second season, so I’m choosing to see this cancelation, evil as it was, as a good thing.)

I did have the college football games on yesterday, but the only one we watched was Miami-Texas A&M, which was the only good game of the day. We turned off the later games to watch other things once it was clear they were not going to be competitive. Despite their blowout losses, good for both Tulane and James Madison for having breakout seasons and making it to the playoffs before a lot of name brand schools did. I don’t know if I’ll watch the quarterfinals or not; I don’t care who wins but I am also not a big fan of any school still left in it–although I always pull for underdogs, so I kind of would like to see Indiana do well–so am not sure.

I did finally finish reading The Postman Always Rings Twice yesterday; it’s really a nasty little book, isn’t it? I now can see why it was controversial; for one, it’s told from the villain’s point of view, which may or may not have been shocking to readers in the 1930s. (This particular reread also made me realize I need to delve more deeply into Chlorine and my main character–who he is, what he wants–and very glad I did; this reread was crucial.) Postman also deserves its own newsletter (I need to get some of the others done and out of the way already, don’t I?), where I can talk about this vicious little novella that changed everything in the crime fiction genre (I”m talking out of my ass here, but I would imagine it did challenge the sensibilities of readers conditioned to Christie, Queen, and Sayers, among many others), and its impact on me, both as a writer and a reader. I also generally don’t revisit Postman often; usually I just revisit Double Indemnity and Mildred Pierce, but am very glad I did. It made me see what was wrong with what I had already done on this book.

I also gave my main character a new stage name–because the old one really didn’t work. It was more modern than the weird names movie stars were given in the late 1940s and early 1950s (Tab Hunter, Rock Hudson, Troy Donahue), and so yesterday one of those dopey names came to me as I was cleaning the house; and realized it would work, plus would help define the amorality and narcissism in the character. I will reuse the working name for him in another book, certainly–it’s a good name–but this new one is even better.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. The sun is shining outside (it’s gorgeous out, just as it was yesterday), and I still have some things to do this morning. I’m going to start reading the new Eli Cranor. methinks, while also revisiting a classic juvenile series mystery from one of my favorite juvenile series. I also have some short stories I want to work on, too. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will be back in the morning before I head in for my last two work days before Christmas.

The gift where they meant well, but didn’t think about the cost-feeding, clothing, cleaning up after him, etc.

Got My Name Changed Back

Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment, and all is well so far, at any rate. It’s cold this morning here in my workspace; but it will warm up during the day. I slept really well last night, and feel pretty good. Sparky got me up a little later than usual, and of course, the pile of blankets was enormously comfortable last night, too. I had the Oklahoma-Alabama game on last night while I did other things, and it was a decent game, from what I actually watched of it, with Alabama finally breaking whatever hold it was Oklahoma had over them these past two seasons and beating them. Good on you, Alabama. I imagine I will have the games on today while doing other things–after getting home from my errands that I need to do this morning. Yesterday was a good day; I got my work done and attended my meeting and worked on the apartment. I did a shit ton of laundry and cleaned the apartment thoroughly, even doing the living room floor. There’s some chores left for me to do in the kitchen, but it already looks so much better down here this morning! I also worked on the voice for Chlorine–which is crucial to getting to work on it, you know?

It’s always nice to have a lovely day, you know? It’s also super great to feel good without the exhaustion and fatigue, too. I think my dad and the doctor are 100% correct and the ulcerative colitis began in the summer off 2020, which is when the fatigue and exhaustion began, and the dehydration. It’s also nice to know that my bitter condemnations of myself as being lazy for not getting more done (which used to be the default setting) wasn’t actually laziness but a physical thing. I can’t remember feeling this good…so it’s been a hot minute, don’t you think?

One of the things I did yesterday was map out my essay series about my interest in Egypt and Egyptian things, and it was rather lengthy! I was trying to remember books about or set in Egypt (crime novels, mostly) that I read when I was a kid–I’m trying to remember the influences on me as a writer and how I got interested in certain things–and was amazed at how many there actually were, you know? And I am pretty certain I am not remembering everything, but the things I do remember are pretty clear and vivid in my head. I mean, Amelia Peabody is one of my favorite fictional characters of all time, so it would be very hard to forget a favorite character from a favorite author, wouldn’t it? I can’t really remember what triggered my interest in ancient Egypt; whether it was from the Encyclopedia or the movie Cleopatra, or even if it was one of those things. I just known I have had a lifelong interest in the art, architecture, and history of the ancient kingdom. (I also didn’t know how to pronounce pharaoh for years, pronouncing it “fair-ah-oh.”) I’ve also always wanted to write about Egypt; I’ve always been fascinated by Akhenaten and his religious revolution, and it’s aftermath–I also remember being endlessly interested in Tutankhamen. I know those Time/Life Great Ages of Man books triggered a lot of my imagination and interest in history.

I guess maybe I should have been an historian, and specialized in the sixteenth century. Oh, well. Coulda shoulda woulda never does anyone any good, does it?

If the weather is nice and lovely tomorrow, I think I am going to take a walk through the neighborhood with my phone, taking daytime pictures of Christmas decorations, and maybe on the night of Christmas Eve Eve, I’ll do it after I get home from work to capture them at night.

And on that note, I am going to go read for a bit before heading into the spice mines for the day. Have a great Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check back in with you again tomorrow.

The perspective on this shot is off, but in a kind of delightful way

Killin’ Time

And work-at-home Friday has rolled around again, and I have a lot to do. Nothing I am going to give myself stress over by any chance–nothing is worth stress, especially now that my anxiety is medicated and under control–but I feel pretty good this morning.

Sparky let me sleep a little later this morning, which was lovely. I didn’t sleep great–I woke up a lot, and was often in that halfway asleep halfway awake state. But I do feel good, so it must have been better sleep than I had thought. I need to make a plan for the weekend. I only have two days in the office next week, so am hopeful, very hopeful, that I will utilize that time well. I have a meeting this morning and a lot of Admin work to get done today, before I can return to the comfort of my easy chair and finish reading the Cain novel and a Shirley Jackson short story I saw mentioned on social media the other day. It’s also sunny and bright outside, with a potential high of sixty. It’s also going to keep getting warmer every day until we hit 80 on (sigh) Christmas. Yes, we’ll be running the air conditioning on Christmas. It is interesting, though, isn’t it, how we’ve all been trained to think of Christmas as cold with snow and ice….if the Jesus story is true, it don’t snow much in Israel, so that was a “tradition” that was added much later by Christians. Why shouldn’t it be warm on Christmas?

We started watching season two of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, based on the Rick Riordan series, and it’s very well done. The cast has also grown a bit since the first season, and look like high school kids now; the first season they looked like tweens. I also want to start some of the other shows that have been released that we’ve not started yet–like the Emma Thompson crime show (love her), or various other crime shows that have been uploaded to streaming services. I also want to start my holiday rewatch of The Mummy movies, to go with my essays on Egypt and the deep fascination I’ve had with the ancient civilization since I was a little boy–and the wonderful novels that fed it over the years. It’s also how I discovered the Amelia Peabody series by the magnificent Elizabeth Peters–I always picked up and examined books set in Egypt whenever I visited a bookstore. I was also a little disappointed that neither Nancy Drew nor the Hardy Boys ever visited Egypt or solved a mystery there. As you may have noticed, before December got underway I was alternating the traditional hot guy images for the blog with Egyptian scenes, and will probably go back to that after the new year and Twelfth Night, adding in Greek and Roman images before moving on, at some point, and then Mayan and scenes from European history.

Oh, and we have another episode of Heated Rivalry dropping tonight–I thought they came out on Wednesdays? Must have been wrong–and I also have to figure out the weekend and how I intend to have it play out; what errands to run, what groceries I need, etc. I know there are football games tomorrow, but don’t care terribly much about any of them, honestly, other than Tulane, my favorite long-shot team to make it to the finals. Indiana-Tulane would be amazing, wouldn’t it? Who would have ever thought either team would be in the play-offs, and I can assure two years ago had anyone predicted Indiana would be the number one seed, they would have been laughed at, or placed in a psychiatric hospital for observation.

The Vanity Fair fallout continues, and I was highly amused to see that their subscriptions spiked on the day they released the article and images on-line. I also love how the photographer (whom I hadn’t heard of before) doubled down with his responses to the criticism from the Right who claimed foul. Hey, no one made Karolyin’ Leavitt get the lip injection so close to the shoot, and you know they all thought the images would be filtered and photoshopped and airbrushed to make them look pretty and powerful and impressive…only to be shown exactly how they are: small, petty, cruel, and utterly banal. That close-up of Leavitt deserves a Pulitzer Prize.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. I know I’ve not been very interesting lately, but hopefully I’ll get more interesting as this dreadful year comes to a close, with no guarantee that next year will be better. Have a lovely Friday before Christmas, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow.

I really need to write a Christmas story about muscle-daddy Santa.

Strawberry Wine

Sunday morning and I do hope all is well with you, Constant Reader! It rained overnight, so it’s a bit chillier this morning than it was yesterday (yesterday was a beautiful day, sunny and in the low seventies); the cold weather comes in tonight around bedtime. How lovely! I slept late this morning, and Sparky let me, for the most part, cuddling rather than trying to get me up most of the time. Yesterday was, for its part, mostly quiet and restful. I didn’t push myself to get things done the way I had hoped, but Paul didn’t have his trainer yesterday and decided to hang out rather than go to the office, so I spent most of the dat in my chair watching television with Paul. I watched two more French history documentaries–this time, histories of the Capet and Bourbon dynasties. We also watched Caught Stealing with Austin Butler, which was different than what we were expecting. The previews made it seem like a black comedy, and yes, there were moments of black humor in the movie, but it was more of a thriller than anything else. My primary takeaway was that Austin Butler is incredibly beautiful (which I’ve known since The Shannara Chronicles), and has the kind of charisma that is very hard to stop watching. It was one of those ‘endless nightmare’ movies, where doing a punk neighbor a favor takes the main character down a path of violence and endless, deadly mess. It also has an insanely good cast, too–Regina King, Zoe Kravitz, Liev Shrieber, etc.–and of course, was directed by Darren Aronofsky.

I did finish scanning my notes from my journal yesterday, which felt like a win, and I did some cleaning and organizing, too. The house feels very snug this morning–warm and cozy–which is really nice, and means I will get to spend some more time in my chair this morning reading and watching another history documentary; I found one on Louis XIII yesterday–the King of The Three Musketeers–who has always been overshadowed in French history by his father and son, as well as his chief minister, Cardinal Richelieu, who remains one of my favorite people in history. (I never could have picked an era of history to concentrate on had I become an historian…) The reign of Louis XIII is a very interesting period in French history, and that could very well be because of The Three Musketeers and my fervent desire to write the story from Milady’s perspective. That’s probably a pipe dream because I’ll never have the time to research and write the story, but it’s always there in the corner of my mind, like an annoying splinter that nags at me from time to time.

Today is going to be only slightly less relaxing from yesterday. I do need to clean and organize some more, and I do need to both read and write today. I also finished my old journal and started a new one this morning (and I put the date in it this time; I had a sense of time in the old ones based on the notes on short stories and novels I was actively working on at the time I was recording things in the journals, but the date will be ever so much more helpful, you know?). I also found a safe, out of the way place to store them going forward. I will continue to have to periodically do this with them, as I move on to other projects I’ve taken voluminous notes on in them–as well as short story and essay ideas that never moved from there to the active files–but it’s kind of fun to scan the pages and label them and put them away in the computer files. (That OCD thing never has gone completely away, and probably never will. Yay for chemical imbalances that are useful!)

The new season of Percy Jackson has dropped, too, which I am also looking forward to watching. I loved the world of Percy Jackson, and those are the books you should be giving your kids, not that other unoriginal and entirely ripped off fantasy series for kids whose author is raw sewage on a good day and a fiend from hell on bad ones. I greatly enjoyed reading the Percy Jackson books, and Rick Riordan’s other mythology based juvenile series are really the best, most engaging books. I would have loved them when I was a kid, because I loved ancient history and mythology growing up (thanks to Time-Life’s Great Ages of Man series, which my parents got for me). I’ve been trying to unpack my childhood and my life-long interests, and where those interests came from. Egypt, of course, is my favorite ancient empire; I’ve always had an affinity for Egypt and have always been drawn to it. (I’ve recently started another essay series about my Egyptian interests…beginning with the Time/Life Ancient Egypt book, a juvenile book called Cleopatra of Egypt and another one that was a mystery, The Mystery of the Pharaoh’s Treasure–and others along the way, including Amelia Peabody and Robin Cook’s Sphinx.)

And well, on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines for the day. I have to run to the grocery store, which I am going to do this morning, methinks, before coming back here and getting cleaned up and get that all over with…but first I am going to watch that documentary on Louis XIII while drinking coffee, eating breakfast and waking up completely. Have a lovely Sunday, wherever you find yourself, Constant Reader.

These lights–from the former human trafficking site Houmas House–are gorgeous.

You’ve Never Been This Far

Work at home Friday! I have to go to Quest this morning to get some bloodwork done (the joys of being an old gay in his sixties never stop, believe you me), but this is the last test for something new for awhile, and will determine whether I need additional treatment for something else… I don’t know, though. I feel pretty good and have energy and there’s not even a hint of brain fog anymore, which is kind of like having enough oxygen after breathing in smoke for years. I know that might sound extreme, but that’s how I look at it because that’s how it feels. I still have short term memory issues (i,e, going into the kitchen and forgetting why I went in there to begin with), but those are bearable and so much better than every other symptom of this nonsense I’ve been dealing with this decade. But, as I have said and will continue to say and believe, it’s so nice to know there was a medical issue to blame these past five-going-on-six years rather than it be from getting older and more frail and feeble. And, even with those issues, I managed to get things done anyway.

That’s something, isn’t it?

I did stop on the way home last night to make groceries, but forgot a few things (of course) so am going to have to go out this weekend to get those, or perhaps simply have them delivered. After I got home and Sparky commanded my attention while watching the news, I did get some laundry started, but that was about it. I went down some Youtube wormholes for research–I am writing an essay about US History, wrapped around the PBS series The American Revolution, with a shout out to Hamilton–which was a lot of fun. I do love me some history. I also am going to start writing my essays about powerful women of the sixteenth century, under the Monstrous Regiment of Women umbrella. I also scanned some notes from my journal for Chlorine, and I hope to get that finished today. There’s no college football this weekend, so Saturday yawns wide open and free.

I’ve already been to Quest to get the lab work done and have come home to finish this and do my work-at-home duties along with my other chores. I wasn’t gone more than thirty minutes, including driving and parking, which really isn’t bad. Of course, before the anxiety medicine I would have been sitting in the lobby, scrolling through my phone or reading my book or some combination of the two, while fidgeting the entire time. I left here just after eight and was back by eight forty, which isn’t terrible. Feeling good and better rested and losing the brain fog has made me really appreciate the anti-anxiety medication all the more, because there’s not that tension building inside all the time anymore, which is also very relaxing; not being tightly wound is quite marvelous, and I don’t know how I managed sixty years plus without said medication. Better late than never.

I saw yesterday that Liam Neeson did the narration for an antivax documentary singing the praises of RFK Jr, and the dangers of vaccines and the COVID hoax and so forth; welp, Mr. Neeson will never be watched in anything ever again in this household. It speaks a lot to who he is, doesn’t it? Either he’s a medical conspiracy moron, or he’s a whore who’ll take a paycheck no matter what he has to do for it. In either case, not someone whose career I have any interest in continuing to support any longer. (I also noted that Sydney Sweeney has also decided to distance herself from MAGA and her white supremacy antics–now that her career is taking and her films are bombing. Never forget that smug smirk on her face when she declined to comment on the controversy. She’s fucking trash. MAGA men just like your tits, bitch, they aren’t going to see your movies.) I also refuse to support any garbage actors who are getting Harry Potter paychecks in the future. You know who and what the Chatelaine of Castle TERF is; don’t plead fucking ignorance. You like blood money. Nice to know who’d be filming with Leni Reifenstahl in the 1930s.

I also saw the Supergirl trailer yesterday and really liked it. I’m sure the comic book incels will hate it, as they hate all women super-heroes. Seriously, little boys–why do powerful women trigger you so much?

Sigh.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a marvelous Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll see you again tomorrow morning.