Category: childhood

Mary Mary

I have always loved strong female characters, having cut my reading teeth on Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, Vicki Barr, the Dana Girls, Judy Bolton, and Cherry Ames, just to name a few. As an adult reader of mysteries, two of my favorite series are Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody series (simply the best) and Donna Andrews’ Meg Langslow series (also a gem of a series); primarily because I love the characters of Amelia and Meg both so very much. They are both fiercely intelligent women with a very dry sense of humor, and are the kind of strong women that everyone around them comes to depend on for support–and droll wit. The death of Dr. Barbara Mertz (who wrote as Peters AND as Barbara Michaels) ended the Peabody series forever, much to my heartbreak; the Meg Langslow series is going strong still, so I am hopeful that I will have years and years of reading pleasure yet to come from Donna.

And then, last year I discovered Mary Russell.

The envelope slapped down onto the desk ten inches from my much-abused eyes, instantly obscuring the black lines of Hebrew letters that had begun to quiver an hour before. With the shock of the sudden change, my vision stuttered, attempted a valiant rally, then slid into complete rebellion and would not focus at all.

I leant back into my chair with an ill-stifled groan, peeled my wire-rimmed spectacles from my ears and dropped tjem onto the stack of notes, and sat for a long minute with the heels of both hands pressed into my eye sockets.

I was already a fan of Laurie R. King from her brilliant Kate Martinelli series, about a lesbian police detective. (If you’ve not read that series, you need to–it’s one of the best of the last thirty years.) I was reluctant to read the Mary Russell series, as Constant Reader may remember from my previous posts about earlier books in this series; for any number of reasons, but primarily not ever really getting into the Sherlock Holmes/Conan Doyle stories. This shifted and changed when I was asked to contribute a Sherlock story to Narrelle Harris’ The Only One in the World anthology; this required me to go back and do some reading of Doyle, and having worked with Laurie R. King on the MWA board, I decided to give her feminist take on Sherlock a go.

And I have not regretted that decision once.

Mary has stepped up to replace Amelia Peabody as one of my favorite on-going series; I love the character–a strong-minded, fiercely independent woman of no small intelligence who is more than capable of going toe-to-toe with Mr. Holmes. Theirs is, despite the age difference, a true partnership of equals; I love that Holmes, in King’s interpretation of him, isn’t quite so misogynistic or incapable of feeling–which I don’t think I’ve ever seen in a male-written version. I like King’s Holmes; the strong female character who is his equal was the perfect solution to whatever misogynistic issues I may have had with other interpretations. I also love that Russell is also pursuing a life of the mind; her studies into theology at Oxford are not just asides to add color and flavor to the character but are just as important to whom she is as a character as the love interest/relationship with Holmes. As I also have an amateur’s curiosity into the history of Christianity and how the faith changed and developed throughout the centuries following the New Testament stories…how that was shaped and influenced by men with not the purest of motives…is something I’ve always been interested in.

I think the first book that challenged Christian orthodoxy in a fictional form that I read–the first time I became aware of the possibilities that the BIble wasn’t actually the pure word of God and had been edited and revised repeatedly in the centuries since Christ ostensibly lived, died and was resurrected–was, of all things, a book by Irving Wallace called The Word (Wallace isn’t really remembered much today, but he wrote enormous books of great length that were huge bestsellers, and the subject matter and style of the books was essentially that they were very bery long thrillers: The Prize was about the maneuvering to win a Nobel; The Plot was about an international conspiracy to kill JFK; The Second Lady was about a Soviet plan to kidnap the First Lady and replace her with a lookalike who was a Soviet agent; etc etc etc). The premise of The Word is simply that a new testament, a document hidden away for centuries in a monastery in Greece, claims that not only did Jesus not die on the cross but went on to live for many decades, preaching his own ministry and even visiting Rome. This, of course, is a cataclysmic document–it would change everything everyone had ever known and believed…if it is indeed authentic.

I’ve always loved a good thriller with a base in theology, ever since; and A Letter of Mary is just that, even if more of a mystery than a thriller. The role of Mary Magdalen has been questioned a lot in the last few decades–not the least reason of which is Holy Blood Holy Grail–an interesting concept if one that has been proven to based in a falsehood in the times since (or was THAT part of the Vatican’s plot?)–which inevitably led to Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. I don’t find the idea that the Magdalen was a beloved disciple of Jesus–and that she may have been his favorite–a reach; likewise, there’s nothing I’ve ever seen in the actual New Testament that essentially says she was a prostitute, a “fallen woman.”

This book begins with Russell despairing over her research only to receive a letter that she and Holmes are going to be receiving a visitor–someone they met during their time in the Holy Land some time earlier–glossed over in The Beekeeper’s Apprentice but apparently explored more deeply in O Jerusalem! The visitor, an older heiress of no small means who is fascinated with archaeology and has been funding digs in the Holy Land, presents the pair with a gift as well as an ancient letter, unauthenticated, which is ostensibly a letter from Mary Magdalen some years after the death of Christ, written to a sister as the city of Jerusalem falls under seige by the Romans during the Jewish Wars, around 70 AD, that saw the sack of the city and the start of the diaspora; which makes it very clear that, if authentic, the Magdalen was one of the disciples and heavily involved in the ministry of the Christian church. Their guest returns to London, and is killed when she is stuck by a car the following day. Holmes and Russell sniff around the crime scene and find evidence that the old woman was murdered…but by whom? Why? Is this about the letter from Mary?

King always tells a great story–you never can go wrong with one of her books, really–and the characters are so well-defined, so real, that even if she didn’t tell a great story, you want to read about those characters more, get to know them better, and cheer them on to their successes and sympathize with their failures. Her writing style is also a joy to read; the Mary Russell voice is so different and so clearly distinct from Kate Martinelli that you can’t not marvel at her mastery.

The next book in the series is The Moor, and I am really looking forward to it.

It’s Not Right But It’s Okay

Sunday morning and it’s probably about time that I get back to work. I don’t want to–this birthday mini-vacation has been quite lovely–but I have things that need to be finished and turned in by the end of this month (hello, edits and revisions) and I have to stop putting that off. I only have to go to the office twice this week–tomorrow and Tuesday–before my Bouchercon vacation begins–but my plans for that time is to get things done and then take time to myself.

Well, I may take Wednesday as a day off. I need to drive around New Orleans and do some research; Wednesday should be perfect for doing that, methinks….so maybe taking a day off to begin with to get into the groove of getting everything done that needs to be done by the end of the month could wait until Thursday to get started…but then on the other hand, maybe it a sight-seeing research trip around the Irish Channel wouldn’t be a huge distraction from getting things done that day….alas, I was supposed to have dinner with great friends that night (fucking Delta variant anyway) but I am going to try, very hard, not to let these things disappoint or depress me. That’s a sure way to guarantee I’ll get nothing done.

I started reading Megan Abbott’s The Turnout yesterday and was, of course, immediately enthralled. She manages to somehow lure you in with the opening sentence, something cryptic, eerie, and yet compelling. Her books always have this same voice–I’d say mournful, but that’s not accurate either–always a variation that fits the story and the characters, but that lyrical, poetic, economic way of establishing mood and dramatic tension is almost ethereal and dream-like; even if the dream will, as always, eventually bare its teeth at the reader. God, how I wish I could write like that. I always wonder how writers as gifted as she write their books–do they write a sentence and then agonize over how to find the right words that create the right rhythm, or do they agonize over which word to add as they go? Me? I just vomit out three thousand or so words at a time and then go back and try to make it say what I wanted to say how I wanted to say it; nothing poetic, lyrical, or dream-like about my work. But I write the way I write–I used to want to be Faulkner when I was in college; I think it’s fairly safe to say that ship has sailed–and I cannot be terribly disappointed by anything I write anymore. I am pleased with the work I am doing–have been doing–and as long as I remain pleased by everything I write going forward, I am going to be just fine. I am intending to spend some more time with Megan Abbott this morning before diving into the edits/revisions before heading to the gym; and intend to do even more revisions/edits after my brief workout this afternoon.

We started watching The White Lotus last night and I am on the fence. I really don’t care much for any of the characters–the acting is terrific, the writing is fine, but I can’t wrap my mind around a point, if there even is one, you know? I rewatched this week’s Ted Lasso, and one thing I’ve noticed–there are so many lovely little touches to this show–that is one of my favorite things is that Keeley always laughs at Ted’s jokes, no matter how corny, no matter how bad the pun–she always laughs, and she always did, from the absolute beginning. In fact, Keeley was the first character on the show to see and accept and like Ted; which made her even more likable.

I also managed to finally get my TCM app working on the Apple TV yesterday–you’ve always needed a television provider for access; once I let Cox go it wouldn’t allow me to use Hulu, but now it does–and I immediately cued up and watched The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, a terrific noir with Barbara Stanwyck as Martha…and as I watched, I realized how much that plot device–a murder committed and covered up by kids, only to have everything come home to roost when they’re adults–gets used a lot today. I saw this movie for the first time when I was a kid, with my grandmother; WGN used to show old movies after the 10:00 pm news in Chicago as well as every afternoon at 3:30 (which is where my educational grounding in classic old films started). I’d forgotten that the magnificent Judith Anderson played Stanwyck’s horrible old aunt that she winds up killing; Anderson was robbed of Oscars at so many turns in her film career–Rebecca, And Then There Were None, this–it really is a shame; but at least those great performances are preserved forever on film. I am very excited, to say the least, about having access to the full range of TCM again; I can now watch movies instead of getting sucked into watching old LSU games on Youtube or history videos (I’ve been watching a lot of biographies of the Bourbon royal family of France during the seventeenth century, and will ask again: why has no queer biographer/historian/novelist written about Louis XIV’s openly gay brother, Monsieur, Philippe duc d’Orleans?). Just glancing through the app yesterday, there were so many movies I wanted to either see for the first time, or rewatch for the first time since I was a child…and of course, watching old film noir (along with reading old noir novels) works as research for Chlorine.

That’s me, multi-tasking and always finding a way to justify wasting time/procrastination. I am quite good at it as well, in case you hadn’t noticed.

I also woke up earlier–well, I woke up around the time I usually do, just got out of bed earlier than usual. The last few days of not getting up before nine, while lovely and restful, also managed to somehow keep the lethargy going throughout the rest of the day. I am hopeful that will not be the case today. I am going to spend an hour or so immersed in Megan’s new book, and then I intend to straighten things up around the kitchen before digging into the edits/revisions of the Kansas book–which I have allowed to languish for far too long–and I also need to clean out some things (spoiled food) from the refrigerator as well as try to get my lunches prepared for the two days in the office this week.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will talk to you on the morrow.

The Boss

Probably one of the most annoying, if not downright irritating, thing about being considered a marginalized author–no matter the cause of the marginalization–are the inevitable diversity panels one is almost always required to participate in; diversity is a topic worthy of discussion on panels at conferences or for libraries or bookstores or round tables for websites, newspapers, and magazines, after all; and what better way for people to learn about the challenges non-straight and non-white writers face all the time than public forums where they can talk about those things?

But it’s also a double-edged sword, too: as Steph Cha once put it, very wisely, “diversity panels inevitably turn into let’s teach the nice white people about racism panels.”

She’s right, although in my case, as a general rule, it becomes let’s teach the nice people about homophobia as a general rule.

It’s frustrating, and it’s tiring, frankly, and more than a little bit on the insulting side to realize programmers only see you as being of value because you’re different from the majority of the pool of writers they are programming for; why, for example, can’t I talk about character or plot or story or setting or all the plethora of subjects straight white people get to talk about? I am not just a gay writer; I’m a writer, and the adjective gay shouldn’t overrule or overpower any noun that comes after it.

But…I accept the invitations to do these panels because other invitations to do other panels, other readings, other events, aren’t forthcoming. I only get invited to do “diversity” readings and “diversity” panels; but I do them, even as I gnash my teeth a bit as I read the invitation.

I do them because my hope is that by doing them, queer writers of the future won’t have to do them. It’s a long haul, and a long game to play, but the recent movement of the crime fiction community in the right directions regarding diversity, and diverse authors, has been absolutely lovely.

But I also realized, several years ago, that I myself have no high horse to mount and ride in this game; because I myself wasn’t reading books by other queer and/or non-white writers. I set out to correct this, and an entirely new world of reading opened up to me; other experiences, other points of view, different ways of seeing society and culture and the world–and using these new points of view to breathe new life into a genre that was beginning to get a little stagnant again.

And I hate the thought that I might have, because of ingrained prejudices of a lifetime lived in a culture rooted in white supremacy, missed out on reading authors like Zakiya Dalila Harris.

Stop fussing at it, now. Leave it alone.

But my nails found my scalp anyway, running from front to back to front again. My reward was a moment of sweet relief, followed by familiar flood of dry, searing pain.

Stop it. Stop it.

I’d already learned the more I scratched, the more it’d resemble the burn of a bad perm–a bad perm that had been stung by fifty wasps and then soused with moonshine. My small opportunity for reprieve would come only after the trains started moving, when I could finally close my eyes and take comfort in the growing distance between me and New York City. Still, I continued to scrape at the itch incessantly, my attention shifting to another startling concern: we weren’t moving yet.

My eyes darted to the strip of train platform visible through the open doors, my mind moving faster than I’d moved through Grand Central Terminal just minutes earlier. What if someone followed me here?

The Other Black Girl is a riveting novel of suspense; workplace noir rather than domestic noir–and really, is there any place more noir than the office workplace? I’ve always been fascinated by group dynamics; how individuals behave in groups, and even in the smallest of workplace, office politics inevitably come into play–unfair bosses, under-appreciated employees; the suck-ups who don’t work as hard or aren’t as competent but somehow always get the plum gigs and promotions because they play the game properly; the underminers….the first workplace drama I ever remember reading about was, of course, also set in publishing: Rona Jaffe’s The Best of Everything, which is vastly overdue for a reread (but I barely have time to read as it is). While the workplace and the drama swirling around the coffee machine or the break room wasn’t the center of the novel–it was more about the girls who worked there’s outside lives, and trying to maintain the balance between what they wanted with their ambitions and what is expected of them as women in American society–it’s always remained in my brain as a book about the workplace. The Devil Wears Prada also took a look at a workplace–that of a fashion magazine–and I personally thought the deeply flawed film version was far better than the deeply flawed book–but also firmly established in American culture the character of Miranda Priestley, the monstrous boss from hell; but Miranda was also the most interesting character in both book and film to me. I wanted to know more about her, who she was; Andie was neither original nor interesting enough, in my mind, to center a book or a film around.

The Other Black Girl also takes places at a prestigious publishing company, Wagner’s, and our main character is Nella–and a fascinating, well-rounded, and deeply developed character is she–one it is easy to sympathize with, to become vested in, and root for. Nella is a young woman of color–the only Black employee in editorial at Wagner’s, and her own drive and activism is being gradually worn down by the micro-aggressions and games and politics played in that workplace, only to be further complicated by the arrival of another Black girl, Hazel. At first, Nella is excited to have another Black girl in the workplace with her…until she slowly begins to realize that everyone responds to Hazel better; listens to her more; and sees her own not exactly rock-solid position at Wagner’s slowly being undermined by the other Black girl…is it deliberate undercutting of a fellow Black girl (‘there can only be one”) or is Nella being paranoid, the every day stressors of working in a mostly white environment making her paranoid, her grip on sanity beginning to slip a little bit? And then she starts getting threatening notes left on her desk….

This is a terrific read, and I loved Nella (although I would have loved to see more of her best friend, Malaika); Nella was fascinating to me. Raised in a mostly white upper middle class world, Nella often questions herself about whether she is “Black enough”–she has a white boyfriend, Owen, and has spent most of her life in mostly white spaces, and has for the most part found herself comfortable–if micro-aggressed–there; she’s ambitious and has a role model–a Black female editor who worked at Wagner before disappearing–and you can’t help but root for her to achieve her ambitions. Hazel is more of a mystery, but she is developed as well as can be for someone who isn’t the point of view character; and this mystery helps drive the story. What exactly is Hazel up to? Is she even up to something?

And the book also–spoiler alert–has a huge shift about 2/3rds of the way through that the reader will NOT see coming…and after that point, you won’t be able to stop reading.

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. I loved it.

Believe

And now it’s the day after, and you know what? I feel no older, wiser, nor smarter than I do on any given morning. I don’t think I will ever completely grasp why everyone makes such a big deal of birthdays.

I slept very late this morning–past nine, which may be a new record–and I feel very calm, very rested, and very relaxed; an auspicious start to this my sixty-first voyage around the sun. My birthday was actually very chill, and very relaxing. We got up and went to Costco to pick up Paul’s glasses and a few other things (I got a new LSU cap for my birthday–GEAUX TIGERS!!!–and then we went out to Metairie to pick up my amazing deep dish Chicago-style pizza from That’s Amore–jalapeños, hamburger, mushroom, and pepperoni, for those who are wondering–and then came home to have a most relaxing day. I put on last year’s LSU-Florida game for background noise (the Shoe Game, which will never get old or ever stop being funny) and curled up in my chair to finish reading The Other Black Girl, which was amazing–it will be getting its own entry, no worries on that score–and also started reading The Turnout, which of course is the new Megan Abbott. I also watched the season finale of Superman and Lois–seriously, Superman fans, this is the show we’ve been waiting for since Christopher Reeve took off the cape–and then we got caught up on other things, like Ted Lasso, Animal Kingdom, and Titans. We also started watching Nine Perfect Strangers on Hulu; which we’re enjoying, but are there really only three episodes, or did Hulu only drop three to begin with? (A quick google search assures me they only dropped three of eight thus far.)

Overall, I couldn’t have asked for a more delightful birthday. It was exactly what the doctor ordered–no emails, very little social media (trying to like all the happy birthday wishes on Facebook; I’m not sure I succeeded), and no stress at all. It was marvelous, really, and then a wonderful night’s sleep capped off the end of the day. If this is indicative of what my sixties are going to be like, well, then I am ALL about them. Today I am going to run a single errand–picking up the mail–and then I am going to come hide back inside the cool of the Lost Apartment, read more of The Turnout, and then I am going to start working on the edits for #shedeservedit. I also at some point–possibly during the reconfigured Bouchercon vacation–need to do the copy edits on Jackson Square Jazz so I can finally get its ebook up for sale (as well as a print edition, and the print edition of Bourbon Street Blues as well), not to mention work on Chlorine. I also have a contract for an exciting new project to go over before signing and returning it; so my weekend is going to be fairly full this weekend. We’ll probably start on The White Lotus tonight, as well as maybe something else; I’m not sure what, really. I also know there are some absolute classic noirs that have been airing lately I would love to rewatch–I’m looking at you, In a Lonely Place and The Strange Love of Martha Ivers–and as always, there is so little time to get everything finished that one wants to get finished.

But I also have to do some organizing around here as well. I put that off for far too long far too often, and I often, even when I do filing and organizing, inevitably always have some odds and ends I am not quite what to do with; today is the day I am going to do something with those things–or throwing them the fuck out. I also have to figure out what I am going to do with all those boxes of files I moved out from under my desk and scattered discreetly (ha ha ha as if) around the living room; a lot of those files are New Orleans and Louisiana research I may never get to use, or get around to using–and the more you learn about local history here, the more you realize you’ll never really know. That can be daunting, of course, but for me–it just fuels my desire to know, and learn, more.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to make a research trip out to the old guardian forts along the mouths of the Mississippi and near the openings of the lakes–I suspect at some point Scotty is going to wind up left to die in one of those old forts, or something; it’s simply too good of material to just continue to let sit there, mouldering and crumbling in our swamp climate without ever writing about them; just like one of these days I need to write a Scotty book that somehow involves Jean Lafitte and pirate treasure. The next Scotty, Mississippi River Mischief, is very amorphous right now and is going to need some more gelling and planning and pulling together; but I think it’s going to be one of the better Scotty books, I really do.

When I get to it. I do also think I want to get the Scotty Bible written and pulled together–at long last; only in process to write the ninth book in the series, so finally? I also want to catch things from older books that have been left hanging. It’s also occurred to me that I could go back in time and write Scotty adventures–there’s time, after all, between books for other cases to drop into the boys’ laps; and it might be fun to go back and revisit Scotty in the early days of his relationships and his detecting career, such as it is.

I am also thinking about a stand alone book with my true-crime writer, who’s crossed over between both series now, and whose name I cannot think of right now–oh, yes. JERRY. I could write an interesting story about him as well, methinks, although he would be the perfect main character for a novella I am planning to do for Chanse…in fact, I thought about using him as the POV character before realizing it works better as a Chanse novella than as a Jerry story.

And on that note, I am going to go curl up with Megan Abbott for a bit before I can run my errands, while swilling more coffee. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader.

So Emotional

And just like that, Our Hero is sixty.

And, as I suspected, it doesn’t feel different; just another day.

But it IS my birthday, I somehow made it to sixty, and I am taking the weekend OFF.

Oh, I am sure I won’t be a complete and total slug; I really need to do the dishes (leaking dishwasher), and I have to take Paul to pick up his glasses later today, and also we have to go out to Metairie to get my deep dish pizza from That’s Amore–but other than that, I am really hoping to not leave the house this weekend other than to go to the gym briefly once or twice. I want to finish reading the book I am reading and at least one other; I have some organizing and cleaning to do, but….that’s the sort of thing I like doing. I also like writing; so I am probably going to do some of that this weekend as well. But I am not holding myself to anything; I am just going to spend this weekend drifting a bit from thing to thing, and if I get some things that need to be done done, so be it; if I don’t, well, that’t what next week’s stay-cation is for. I don’t have to work from Wednesday thru Monday, inclusive; if I can’t use that time to get a shit ton finished there’s really not much hope for me, is there?

I am also hoping to get even more reading done next week as well.

We’ll see how ambitious I actually am, won’t we?

But it’s nice. I didn’t think I would wake up to heavenly hosts singing “Alleluia”, the clouds parting and the sun shining directly on me or any such nonsensical things. I’ve never been one to be deeply into my birthday; sure, when I was a kid we celebrated and I had cake and got presents, but I don’t really remember it being that big of a thing…and I’ve carried that into my adulthood. I mean, sure, it’s nice to have a day that in theory is all about me (which should be every day, really–I AM a Leo, after all), but I also have that weird “I want attention/I hate attention” thing going on as well. It’s seriously a wonder that I am as mentally stable as I am–which is a very low bar–but my mind and my personality and ego and id and everything are always, it seems, at loggerheads with each other; all those voices in my head making me feel a little bit on the unstable side.

I also need to stop indulging myself for my birthday. Yes, I am sixty, and yes, I generally don’t treat myself to anything other than some books usually, but this year I got a new computer, a new Fitbit, a new phone, new shoes, books, a new toaster, a new coffee grinder, and a new atomizer for the kitchen. Clearly, I more than made up for past lean years (and dipped into the budget for future ones) already; but it’s also fine, you know. I don’t mind indulging myself by any means; the problem is stopping once I’ve started. I always feel like I should treat myself, all the time; all day every day, frankly, and so the issue is training myself to say no, you don’t really need that, do you? And when you look at things in terms of need vs. want, you find that there really is little that you actually need.

I got caught up on my Real Housewives shows yesterday while making condom packs, and yes, there definitely needs to be an entirely different, Real Housewives-dedicated post at some point. I am getting to the point where I don’t really want to watch them that much anymore, and it’s more from habit now than any sense of enjoyment; like it’s a duty to watch, the way I watched Dynasty all the way to the bitter end, UFO encounters and all. I’ve already paired down from a high of watching every one of the franchises to cutting back to simply the New York and Beverly Hills franchises, but it’s becoming very, very difficult to watch even those two. Paul and I watched this week’s episode of Titans last night as well–which is going in a weird direction this season, but I am here for it–not the least reason of which is Brendan Thwaites, who plays my favorite comic hero Nightwing, is smoking hot. SPOILER: I hate that they killed off super-hot Alan Ritchman and Hawk, but he’s playing the lead in Amazon’s Jack Reacher, and I will say I will be watching every episode of that. He really looks like Reacher, even if at 6’3 he’s a few inches short for the part, but I don’t think those three inches will make that big of a difference on camera.

Sixty. It does take some mental gymnastics to wrap my brain around it. I don’t feel any different–as always on a birthday–and of course, the aches and pains and wearing down of my body has been pretty regular over the last ten years; regular and gradual. I am going to, once the gym renovations have been completed, dive hard into weight lifting again. It occurred to me the other day that, sore and muscles tired from the workout of the day before, that I am going to always be sore and achy anyway; I might as well feel that way from pushing my body to its limits rather than just from every day life. I do want to lose some weight, which may mean changing my eating habits at long last (I didn’t have to for so long that it will be a severe and deeply painful adjustment) but I am going to indulge myself this weekend with the deep dish pizza and after that, I am going to try to start cutting back on fat content and simple carbohydrates–no more snack foods; a sad farewell to chips and Cheese Puffs and Toast Chee peanut butter and cheese crackers–and focus on more health foods. I need more fiber in my diet, and more greens, and less garbage. Heavy sigh. I am dreading this retraining, but it’s a necessary one and it would be great to get down to 200 pounds, and possibly even shoot for 190 again (although I do think that would be too lean for my frame, body type, and current muscularity). I was down to 203 earlier this year, but am now back up to 212, and this shall not stand–way way too easy to get back up to over 220 and I will NOT allow that again.

I don’t have anything witty or profound to say about turning sixty; it’s really nothing more than a testament to my weird survivor abilities–which I’ve done absolutely nothing to develop other than simply waking up every morning. I think that’s partly why I have such a mental block about celebrating birthdays, really–it seems a bit morbid to me; “yay, I’m still alive! Let’s party!” It’s not like I’ve been super-careful or anything; but somehow I survived and witnessed and made it through the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and am now doing the same–so far–with the COVID one. I just seem to go on somehow; there’s really no rhyme or reason to it. I’ve seen a lot change over the course of my sixty years–we live in a completely different world than the one I was born into and raised in–and I’ve seen a lot of things I wished I hadn’t, lived through a bunch of things I’d certainly prefer not to experience ever again in however many (or few) years I have left. I have no secrets to life or how to live, not any deep knowledge or wisdom to share; as I said, I just endure and somehow keep surviving from year to year.

I sure as hell never thought I’d last this long.

And on that note, tis time to get cleaned up and prepare for my short little outing for the day. I will be blogging over the course of this weekend, as always, and periodically checking in on social media (when I get bored), but for the most part, am not planning on being on-line much for this weekend; I’m due a break from it all, methinks, and why not now?

Have a lovely day, Constant Reader.

Holding Out for a Hero

Wednesday and sixty has crept yet another day closer. In fact, today is Sixty Eve Eve! All About Sixty Eve Eve?

Honestly, I can barely stand myself sometimes!

Yesterday I started the long process of the revisions/edits/tweaks the Kansas book needs; God, I am so heartily sick of those opening chapters I don’t even know how to begin to describe just HOW sick I am of those chapters. This book has had more drafts than any other one I’ve written since maybe Murder in the Rue Dauphine–which I’ve always thought had an excessive amount of draft versions–but in fairness, I’ve told and retold and made up my mind how to tell this story and then changed my mind yet again and so…draft after draft after draft after draft. So many changes, so many corrections, so many characters had their names changed, and then whole thing is really just a big old mess. The manuscript I sent my editor was probably so bad it counted as creating an abusive workplace environment. But as I started going through it all again last night–I couldn’t help but feel the excitement I did have about this project at one time; and I look forward to its release when I can share everything with you, Constant Reader.

But oy–cleaning up this manuscript mess is going to be a challenge and a half. But I CAN DO IT. I know I can.

I also want to go over “The Sound of Snow Falling” one more time. I think it needs yet another tweak I missed the last time around–I was actually rather pleasantly surprised by how well it played out in the original draft–my original drafts are inevitably messy, sloppy, and too embarrassing for me to let anyone else see. (Another issue with donating my papers somewhere–the last thing I want to do is have people reading my horribly patchy and sketchy initial drafts of anything–although for someone who finds that sort of thing interesting, I suppose the journey from horrifyingly sloppy first draft to final, polished draft might be their cup of tea.

I mean, as an intellectual exercise to see how a book or story might come together, sure. But I would tend to think it would get tedious rather quickly.

Then again, maybe that’s just me.

I was tired yesterday when I got off work; I was definitely out of the habit of waking up early over the last few days–not that I ever really get used to getting up early. I could have this schedule for the rest of my life, five days per week, and I would still grumble and be sleepy and tired and slightly crabby all day every single time I have to get up early. I had planned on going to the gym after work, but I was so tired by the time I was done for the day I didn’t really feel like I had much of a choice; just the thought of the walk in the heavy humidity-it rained off and on all afternoon–also would have curled up my hair if I had any. Instead, when I got home I took a quick shower to wash the day off me and curled up in my easy chair with purr-kitty and The Other Black Girl. (I am going to read Megan Abbott’s latest, The Turnout, next; I’ve been itching to get it started) Yesterday was a definite low-energy day; hopefully I’ll have a bit more energy today to get things done. It also started pouring down rain when I got home, which wasn’t exactly encouraging me to go outside and walk for ten minutes to get there, either. I read about another fifty or sixty pages of the book, enjoying it tremendously still–perhaps I can finish it tonight–and then watched the A&E bio of MTV before going to bed last night. I slept really well again last night–it goes without saying that I really didn’t want to get up this morning, but I am not as sleepy/still tired the way I was yesterday, which is also fine; perhaps I won’t be too tired to get things done today the way I was yesterday. It’s also Pay-the-Bills Day (hurray for pay day?), so I will definitely be having to spend some time doing exactly that this morning.

Huzzah?

At least I can pay them; that’s probably the best way to look at the situation.

I still haven’t made that crucial to-do list, either. Maybe today? But at least tomorrow is the work-at-home day this week, and then of course Friday is the big birthday. What am I going to do for turning sixty? Going to drive out to Metairie and get a deep-dish pizza from That’s Amore, for one thing; which is most likely going to be all I do for the day. I’m not a big let’s do something major for my birthday person; haven’t been that in quite some time, and frankly, just being able to laze around the house without guilt–a day off where I don’t feel like I am wasting the day, or like I should be doing something other than being lazy–is actually sufficient. If I don’t have The Other Black Girl finished by then, I will most likely get it finished on Friday, and then will curl up with Megan Abbott. I really need to dig into my reading more–I am getting further and further behind in my reading, as the TBR Pile continues to grow larger at an increasingly terrifying rate–and I am most likely going to go back to placing a moratorium on buying books for a little while again; at least until I make some more progress on the reading.

The dishwasher started leaking last night–it’s always something around the Lost Apartment, seriously–and so I am going to have to start doing the dishes by hand again. At least this time I have the dishwasher to load them into to dry, which is something I didn’t have the last time the dishwasher conked on for a while–so they’ll be, at the very least, out of the way until they dry–but it’s still a pain in the ass. I don’t recall how old this dishwasher is–my sense of time is so fucked up and skewed I don’t remember how old anything is; I still can’t get over how old my old desktop was by the time I finally replaced it–but it should have definitely lasted a while longer, methinks; the failure of appliances to last for decades is something that still catches me off guard and by surprise.

Obviously, in some ways I am still stuck in my childhood, remembering things like how my mother’s first washer and dryer lasted for over twenty years….

And on that note, tis time to head back into the spice mines.

I Drove All Night

Friday and the first day of my four day weekend! Woo-hoo!

And I got my new computer yesterday–and practically wept for joy once I had it set up (which literally took NO time at all). It’s so fast, the picture quality is stunning (I played the 2019 LSU-Alabama game on it thru Youtube while I did the dishes, and the picture quality is better than my television’s. And yes, that game is one of my main happy places, sue me.) It’s been amazing so far; but I also need to remember to enjoy these it’s amazingly functional and fast days for the inevitable day when the spinning wheel starts showing up again, or programs start freezing or locking up, and the whole hellish Mac computer thing starts all over again.

Today is a Gregalicious day; I had already decided earlier this week that would be what today would be for me. I have a spa appointment at twelve thirty (for a waxing, if you want to know, and sorry about the TMI if you didn’t) but it’s all a part of the new attitude towards celebrating being sixty, and part of my personal wellness journey. There was just something about going to the gym the other night for the rebirth of Leg Day into my life that switched my mindset around, or flipped a switch in my head about working out; maybe it was the tiredness of my legs the last two days around here, which means I am aware of the work my body is doing? While I have been going to the gym and working out fairly regularly since we joined the new gym, it’s not like I’ve been enjoying the workouts, or even had much of a goal going forward with it–more of a I am doing this to be healthier and to try to be in better shape. I’ve not wanted much to mess with my eating habits/diet; I’ve never rearranged the way I eat for weight control, choosing the workout path on its own entirely. Maybe I should do something about my eating habits; trying to eat healthier, or something. I want to lose some fat weight–I had gotten down to 200 but am now back up to 211 again, and i’d rather be around 200, possibly even as low as 190. It’s possible and I am going to work my way up (down?) to that goal. Part of the issue with the working out is that I didn’t have a set goal–before, as I have said, I always planned my goals around peaking at the holidays–Decadence, Halloween, and Carnival–and while I have no intentions of ever running around at those events next to naked again under any circumstances, maybe it’s not a bad idea to use those dates as goal dates…my mind is already wired that way.

We started watching the new season of Titans last night on HBO MAX–I’ve always loved the Titans; they were amongst my favorites in the DC Universe, and Nightwing has always been one of my favorite heroes in that universe–and was surprised/not surprised to see the Joker killing off Jason Todd before the opening credits of Episode One. As I explained to Paul, back in the 1980’s as a publicity gimmick, DC ran a contest about killing off Jason Todd/Robin, fully expecting the readers to vote to keep him alive. They didn’t; and I will be the first to admit I voted for him to die daring DC to actually pull the plug on a major character in the Batman universe; DC called the readers’ bluff and killed off Jason in the now famous “A Death in the Family” story, which was also around the time the Batman stories took their turn toward the truly dark and noir.

Today I am going to, as I said, have a spa appointment. I also have to pick up another box of Scooter’s insulin syringes and get the mail. Obviously, I am trying to figure out the most efficient way to do the errands, as always, and think I’ll start with the spa day and go further afield uptown from there before coming home and spending some time with The Other Black GIrl. I also need to head to the gym at some point today, preferably before five (when it starts getting crowded again) and I will probably spend a goodly amount of time playing with my new computer, which is always a fun way to spend time. I’m going to spend the rest of this morning probably cleaning out my email inbox, as well as doing some other neatening/straightening up around my office area; I don’t have to be at my spa appointment until twelve thirty. I would like to get phô today, but with the gym and the protein shake I may have to put off the phô until tomorrow, alas.

I’m also going to possibly–just possibly–do a little bit of writing work today–I know, that’s not a Gregalicious Day Off thing, but I do need to get that short story revision typed up, and I also need to get my notes for the revision of #shedeservedit typed up, and I should probably spend the weekend going over that manuscript and making corrections to be input while I am on vacation in two weeks in order to get it all finished by the end of the month.

So, yes, I have a lot of plans for the rest of this month that really need to get done absolutely; and the first thing in order to be certain it’s all going to get done is to make sure that I have a to-do list in place….and so that’s what I am going to do for the majority of the rest of this morning; getting a bit organized. And yes, that does count as a Gregalicious Day Off activity; because it will relieve my mind and help me relax.

And on that note, tis off to the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday the 13th, everyone!

Get On Your Feet

Thursday and we have reached the work-at-home portion of one Gregalicious’ work week; the last workday of the week, in fact, since the agency is closing tomorrow and Monday to give us a lovely little treat of a holiday. Huzzah! Huzzah for a long weekend! Huzzah for a long weekend I have to spend revising my next manuscript! Oh, wait a minute…that’s not a huzzah, is it?

YES IT IS BECAUSE IT’LL BE FUN!

I’m actually looking forward to finishing the edits on this thing, to be honest with you. I wrote the first draft in July of 2015; in fact, wrote 97,000 words in thirty-one days–and really, over the years of adapting and changing and revising, not a whole let changed–character names, the time when the story takes place, some minor things here and there–and most of the problems reported back to me from my editor result from those changes; changes from first person to third and back again; past tense to present tense to past again; etc. etc. etc. There are also some other minor changes and tweaks that need to be made as well–and yes, it will be time consuming and perhaps a bit tiresome, but it will be absolutely delightful to write finis to this story at long last.

I do want to get some more chapters of Chlorine finished this month as well; although I am scheduling September to be my “finish first draft of Chlorine” month; hopefully I will stay on schedule and get that done; it would be awesome to get like the first fifty pages or so polished and out to agents in October, wouldn’t it? Why yes, yes it would.

Fingers crossed, right?

I also had an odd sort of epiphany last night–yesterday afternoon, really–about turning sixty in (gulp) eight days. I wasn’t really sure, honestly, how to feel about it? I don’t care about being old, or even older; I have mentioned before that sixty was affecting me in some ways I couldn’t explain, and didn’t understand fully–which has led me to think more about this birthday than I have any other I’ve experienced previously. I’ve never seen the point of celebrating birthdays, honestly; you did nothing to be born–that was your parents–and celebrating another year was essentially, the way I saw it, simply an acknowledgement that you’ve survived another year, and why would you celebrate something that really, just kind of happened as a result of mostly happy accidents and not being in the wrong place at the wrong time? But the survived part kind of stuck in my head yesterday as I was thinking about it, and that got my mind going another way. I have, indeed, simply survived for almost sixty years–and that really is something. I never thought I would last this long–certainly not during the plague years, where I always assumed it was simply a matter of time before I got infected and died horribly–but the very fact that I did make it through the plague years is something, after all. And as I thought more about all the friends and loved ones and strangers I’ll never know about who didn’t get to live to be sixty, I realized I needed to celebrate and embrace this birthday if for no other reason than to do so for those who didn’t get to make it this far.

So….I decided I want that marvelous deep dish Chicago-style pizza from That’s Amore in Metairie for my birthday. I made an appointment for some Greg-care on Friday at a spa on Magazine Street. I decided to go ahead and buy a new computer; why am I suffering with this seven-year-old that is just limping along and wastes so much time with the spinning wheels of death? I put in a vacation request for my birthday. And so what if I pamper myself a little bit? Why shouldn’t I?

And last night was the return of the dreaded LEG DAY, and you know what? It wasn’t so awful. Granted, I just did three sets of the leg exercises I had already been doing, then added one set of four new exercises with a light weight–but I also need to get my legs used to being pushed again, and it actually felt quite marvelous, to be honest. I stretched after lifting weights, and so my legs feel nice and tired today, but not achy. I am going to run to the office in a little bit to drop off boxes of condom packs and Scooter’s used insulin syringes (lovely how I have a job where syringe disposal is an option), and then it’s back home to get some data entry done and more condom packs made. Later, even though it’s a terrible time to head out to Metairie to the Apple Store, I am going to do that tonight and get my new computer so it’s all set up and ready to operate over the course of this lovely four day work weekend that is currently looming–the thought of spending most of tomorrow curled up with The Other Black Girl is so simply marvelous I can hardly stand it, really–and then I can spend the next three days writing and revising and cleaning and organizing and doing what I usually do on a weekend…although I also have Monday to go along with it.

Huzzah!

And on that note, tis off to the spice mines with me for today. You have a lovely day, Constant Reader.

Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You)

I managed to get the page and cover proofs for Bury Me in Shadows finished yesterday, and yes, I am at the point again where I am so heartily sick of this book I’d rather not ever look at it again. It’s a good book; I like my main character and I enjoy the story and how it all plays out; I even think I got the tone I was going for correct–I just don’t ever want to have to read it ever again; this is par for the course, and frankly, I was a little surprised as I started going through the proofs that I wasn’t already there; I usually am by this point, and so I am taking this as a good sign for the book. Soon it will be up to the reviewers and the readers and there’s nothing I can do about it anymore. Now all I have to do is fill out the forms and turn them in and I can close up the box with all the drafts and notes and thoughts and everything else under the sun for the book and put it away up in the attic with the other accumulated boxes…which I really need to decide to do something with, and sooner rather than later. Tulane’s Louisiana Historical Research Center had shown some interest in them about a decade or so ago; I should probably renew that conversation at some point; maybe the Historic New Orleans Collection would be interested–I honestly don’t know. But the sooner this stuff it out of my attic and my storage the better, frankly. I should set a date to get them donated and if no one does, indeed, want them–toss them out and be done with it once and for all.

I also wrote an outline/synopsis of what I am going to finish writing for my friend’s website this morning, which I will need to flesh out and finish this morning. Over all, yesterday was a very good day–I also wrote notes for Chapter Four of Chlorine, which I hope to get to finish today, around going to the gym, which would also be lovely.

We’re watching the final season of Animal Kingdom on Hulu; the show seems weird without Ellen Barkin’s chilling performance as Smurf at the heart of it–and I don’t think the flashbacks to her as a young mom committing crimes and using/discarding men are necessary; the actress playing her as a young woman is good–but as I said to Paul last night, “but I think of young Ellen Barkin and how she’d be killing this role, and this young actress just isn’t young Ellen Barkin.” The show is still high quality, though–we’re enjoying it and I would recommend it–and I think tonight we may start watching the new season of Ted Lasso. We’ve been holding off on starting because it’s such a joy to binge-watch; but I am getting more and more impatient to get started. Several other shows we’ve enjoyed–Sky Rojo, Control Z, Dark Desires, Titans–have either dropped new seasons or will be at some point this month, so we should be set for viewing for a while.

I also started writing a short story yesterday–yes, I know, I know, but this is the curse of creative ADHD–called “A Midnight Train Going Anywhere.” Yes, the title came to me while I was listening to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” and I thought, she took a midnight train going anywhere was a great image (I’ve always thought so) and as I thought about it some more, I saw a train pulling into a whistle stop station in the middle of Kansas (Kansas has been on my brain a lot lately, because my main character from Chlorine is from there and of course I am about to give the Kansas book it’s final polish from editorial notes) and I just had the image–the lonely platform, the train’s whistle on a cold clear night, the darkness lying on the town at midnight, the only light the station–and a man, sitting on the train, heading west, awakened by the change of the rhythm of the train wheels, getting up to walk around the station platform to work out the kinks in his legs, back and shoulders from riding on the train–but beyond that, I couldn’t really think of anything. I wrote down that entire set-up scene, scribbled away in my new journal (started a new one yesterday!) and didn’t know where to go from there….I have some vague, amorphous ideas, but I also love the idea about writing about a train in a past time–it was also very clear to me this wasn’t an Amtrak train so it had to be set in the distant past (also another nod to Chlorine), but am not sure where it will go or if it will come to anything; I’ll wind up transcribing it today at some point, I am sure. Maybe it will turn into something, maybe it will go into the files with all the others and collect dust there, who knows? What I do know is I have until the end of September to finish Chlorine, so I can spend the final quarter of the year writing Mississippi River Mischief, which will be Scotty IX.

Yikes, right?

The house is also still a hideous mess; I am going to finish the laundry (folding) and empty/refill the dishwasher this morning before i dive into the website writing and the writing of Chapter 4 of Chlorine before heading to the gym this afternoon. I’ve been terrible; I just haven’t had the wherewithal to actually face the heat and walk over there this past week; I don’t think I’ve been since Sunday, to be perfectly honest with you (I had a horrible moment yesterday where I couldn’t remember Thursday–which was a bit terrifying, and then I shrugged and gave up trying, essentially thinking obviously nothing major happened on Thursday if you can’t remember anything), so today’s workout will undoubtedly be exhausting and more than a little painful; but I can hang with it. It’s weird not having the motivation of results anymore–I really don’t care if I look good; that ship has long since sailed and the latest age-related shifts to my body have pretty much let me know I will never be as lean and defined and muscular as I was fifteen years ago, and that’s perfectly fine–but this phase of Greg’s workouts is about feeling better, feeling stretched, maintaining the strength and flexibility of my body, and if the muscles grow and the overall body gets leaner, so be it.

At least I am not obsessively looking at myself in the mirror trying to find trouble spots where fat has accumulated and obsessing about how to get rid of it, thinking that will solve everything. (Helpful hint: it solved nothing.)

I’d also like to spend some time reading this morning; maybe an hour before I get to the writing stuff, after folding the laundry, putting away the clean dishes as well as washing the dirty ones and putting them in the dishwasher. I like Sundays, really; it would be my favorite day of the week if it didn’t end with going to bed and waking up to Monday morning. I seem to always be fairly level on Sundays, focused and relaxed and able to get things done that I want to get done, if you know what I mean. I have a four day weekend next weekend thanks to the office closing to give us all a mini-thank you-vacation for working in a public health clinic during a world-wide pandemic; I am hoping to dive into the revisions of the Kansas book over that weekend and then finishing it during my vacation during the next week (my time off for Bouchercon).

As long as everything goes as planned, by the end of the year I’ll have a great first draft of Chlorine ready to go, as well as a ninth Scotty ready to be turned in; and if I stay motivated maybe even the novellas and short story collections might be ready to go as well.

Fingers crossed as I head back into the spice mines this morning….have a great day, Constant Reader!

Finally

Friday and the cusp of the weekend, which is always nice. I am working at home again today, slept really well last night, and am waiting for my caffeine to kick in, which will be most lovely. I have a lot to do today (besides the condom packing and so forth); I am slowly digging back out from under with most things at long last and recognizing how best to move forward with everything I have to do, how to get it all done without making myself stressed and crazy in the meantime, and trying to keep my moods and everything level in the future.

Although last night I got to write the line I signed an autograph for Big Dick Barney and left, which was fun. I must say, I am enjoying myself with Chlorine–I am loving the main character’s voice, and diving into the mentality of someone who knows the rules and system are stacked against him through no fault of his own, so he has no issues using and twisting the rules and the system to his advantage. He’s an anti-hero, sure, and a bit amoral, but the whole point of telling this story is to show how people like him in his time period had two choices: either be a victim, or do what you have to in order to survive.

My character chooses not to be a victim, which in some ways makes him heroic. I guess we’ll see how it all turns out.

I have some writing to do for my friends’ website this weekend–which I should be able to knock out tomorrow morning–and the proofs for Bury Me in Shadows are due on Monday as well. So, around going to the gym, cleaning and organizing the Lost Apartment, and reading The Other Black Girl, I should be able to get a lot of this all done. I also want to revise my short story “The Sound of Snow Falling” over the weekend as well. Last night I came up with another story idea (I’ve had two new ones this week, actually), inspired by coming across Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” on a playlist yesterday–the lyric she took a midnight train going anywhere has always been one I enjoy, thinking it very evocative; it hit me yesterday that it could make for a great title for a short story (“The Midnight Train Going Anywhere”) and the story began to slowly form in my head–someone escaping a whistle stop, sitting next to to someone on that train, and telling them their story–but I am not sure if it will work or not, but the title! Oh, what a wonderful title. The other story idea I had this week is “Jerry’s Problem”, in which a newly retired gay man is drinking a Margarita in his back yard, hanging out in his hammock and reading a thriller, when a car speeding past his back yard fence tossed a gym bag over the fence–just as he hears the sounds of a pursuing police siren coming. The gym bag is filled with money and cocaine…and now Jerry has a problem: will the crooks come looking for their drugs and money? Should he turn it into the cops? Or….could he keep the money and sell the drugs, without attracting the attention of either the cops or the drug dealers?

It’s one of my stories, so I think the answer to the questions is fairly obvious–the recurrent theme to my short stories is bad decisions.

Write what you know, indeed.

Of course, all I really want to do is curl up with a good book under a blanket and spend the day reading. Ah, well, my new vacation–I’m not canceling the time off I took for Bouchercon–will hopefully give me that kind of relaxing day or two in a few weeks. And of course next weekend we have four days off from the office, which is rather lovely. So perhaps I can also reserve one of those days for just reading…

One can dream, at any rate, can’t one?

And on that note, heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, everyone!