Category: chores

Brutal

Wednesday morning and feeling a bit raggedy. Part of this is due to the Lost Apartment not having water–you can only imagine my great delight in getting a text from my neighbor yesterday afternoon at work asking if we had water, and then getting home to find out that we don’t. The story I got from the Sewage and Water Board was that a pipe had burst, but “it should be back on this evening.” She knew it was a lie, I knew it was a lie, but it was one of those situations where there’s really nothing to do but pretend she wasn’t lying and saying thank you and hanging up. Needless to say, this morning there still is no water. I brushed my teeth with bottled water and the water tank of the Keurig is full so at least I have coffee, but I can’t even wash my face, let alone flush a toilet or take a shower. Suspecting this would be the case this morning (any New Orleanian knows you cannot believe a word anyone from the S&WB says) I got my shift at the office covered and am going to work from home today.

It’s truly amazing what an effect a lack of running water can have on you. I couldn’t wash dishes, run the dishwasher, do any laundry; I cannot shave or wash my face, let alone shower; cannot flush a toilet because I don’t have enough water on hand to fill the tank–and I’d rather preserve what drinking water we have, frankly. As I was thinking about this last night–the thin veneer of civilization we have stretched over our lives–I decided that being without water was worse than being without power–certainly at this time of year, at any rate; if we lose power during the summer my position on the matter will most definitely change. This also put me in mind of the freeze in Texas and other states that don’t usually get a hard freeze or snow, and how so many people lost not only water but power as well. We don’t really hear much about that any more–the news has moved on–but from my own experience it takes a while to recover from such natural disasters, and everyone couldn’t get their water restored immediately, either–especially those whose pipes had burst. But no one is talking about that anymore, and so far as one can tell, you’d think the issue was in the past and normalcy has returned.

It also amazes me to think that I am quite literally one generation removed from, well, not having much in the line of running water. My mom grew up with a well with a pump that sent water to the kitchen sink; but there was no bathroom in her childhood home. I have hazy memories of visiting my grandmother before she had a bathroom put in and a septic tank…

So, as you can certainly imagine, last night was an “out of sorts” night for me; I was exhausted–I didn’t forget my coffee in the car, and yet completely ran out of steam yesterday afternoon while I was at the office–and being out of sorts this morning isn’t helping matters much. I did read a bit last night–nothing exciting, just my own manuscript; I’d sent the Bury Me in Shadows manuscript to the Kindle app on my iPad precisely so I could read it like it’s a finished book–and when I opened it, apparently I had been reading it already there some time in the past because it was open to Chapter Eight. So I read a few more chapters of that, watched some history videos on YouTube as well as the final quarter of the Saints win in the Super Bowl all those years ago; I’d forgotten we were trailing going into the 4th Quarter by one point, for example, but watching the interception by Tracy Porter run back for the clinching touchdown brought back all those joyous memories of how amazing it was to watch it live and hear the city cheering from inside the house. Paul got home relatively early as well–and what I mean by that is I was still awake when he got home; two nights in a row!–but he had work to do and repaired upstairs to do it while I continued watching history and sports videos on Youtube.

Really, such a fascinating life I lead.

So, at some point this morning I am probably going to go to the gym and shower there after working out–I am assuming they are far enough away from us to not be affected by this broken water main issue–and will spend the day making condom packs and doing data entry for work, all the while hoping that the water comes back sometime, adjusting my work hour appropriately to provide for that. Heavy sigh. Such is my life these days; trying to get things done, not being able to stay on top of things as more, newer things demand my attention all the time. Sometimes I despair that it will all get done, and then I have a mini-breakdown of sorts, after which I just buckle down and start pushing the boulder up the hill again. I need to get back to work on the current manuscript; I need to get caught up on so many other things; and so these setbacks–like not having water–inevitably seem much more defeating than they should. As Paul says, all too frequently, why does everything have to be so hard? He’s not wrong. I wonder this myself all the time…

And on that note, I am heading into the waterless spice mines. Wish me luck, Constant Reader!

The Beach

Tuesday!

Yesterday was not nearly as productive as it could have been. Generally, on mornings when I have to get up at six, will invariably have a cappuccino at home while I wake up, and then make another to take with me, which I sip at all morning. This gets me through the day pretty well, and through into my evening when I go home and write or edit or read or do chores. So, Constant Reader, you can only imagine my horror when I got to the office and my travel mug was not in its side holder on my back pack. (It turned out to be in the in the car–it fell out of its pocket when I got my backpack out of the car yesterday morning when I arrived at the office…) So yes, I ran out of steam yesterday afternoon, and was very tired by the time I got home from work. In other words, last night all I managed to do was a load of dishes, and quite frankly, this morning I’m not even sure what I watched last night, other than the final episode of It’s a Sin with Paul; turned out he did want to finish watching. Oh yes, now I remember; I watched this week’s episodes of Allen v. Farrow and John Oliver’s show. Allen V. Farrow continues to be a harrowing watch; this week’s episode was about the custody battle–which ended with Allen getting a massive bitchslap by both the court and the judge; in other words, the judge believed Mia to be a fit mother and Dylan a credible witness, and Allen didn’t prove himself to be a fit parent–in fact, his visitation rights with the two other children he shared with Farrow were limited by the court and had to be supervised. If the goal was to punish Farrow, it failed massively–other than making her miserable for a period of time. Interestingly enough, one of the main takeaways from the show is being blown away by how beautiful Mia still is, today. I never understood the desire to have so many children–not, of course, that my understanding was ever needed or necessary or required; my mentality was always “I don’t get the need for so many kids, but if it makes her happy, more power to her and she is adopting kids, which is terrific.” I don’t think Farrow has worked much since the break-up with Allen; her career was mostly starring in his movies after they became a couple…the real shame is I’d like to watch some of those films now (I’ve never seen many Allen films, not being a fan) but I’m not sure if I should. It’s another one of those Roman Polanski things–ironically, one of my favorite Polanski films also stars Farrow, Rosemary’s Baby–I think, but some of those Allen/Farrow films are considered classics.

In other welcome news, I discovered yesterday that I now weigh 203 pounds; the lowest since around 2011/2012, and just three pounds away from my goal weight. I managed to get down to around 212 last year or the year before, as a process, from the 225 I had ballooned up to about a decade or so ago; I set 200 as my goal weight for the year, but I’d be stuck at 212 for so long I didn’t think I was ever going to break through. A few weeks ago I was delighted to see I’d managed to break through that plateau and had dropped to 208; someone gave me a compliment yesterday which drove me to the scale in the (unused) nurse’s office and to my delight, I discovered that I had somehow dropped another five pounds–whether it’s the working out, the change in diet (which was neither extreme nor dramatic), or the walking to the gym and back and always using the stairs at the office, I am not sure–but it has happened, and it is most pleasing to our eyes. I also made some progress on my emails yesterday, which was a very pleasant development.

This weekend is the virtual Saints and Sinners Festival; I taped a panel about mystery and romance with four amazing writers (Carrie Smith, Carsen Taite, J. M. Redmann, and Cheryl Head), which I think is scheduled to air on Sunday, March 14th, at 3 pm CDT; I am not really sure where, so I will have to find out and post it later. I know that after its original air date it will be available for viewing on the Tennessee Williams Festival’s Youtube channel. I was woefully unprepared, but I also had a group of very smart, savvy, and talented women to give me great answers to simple questions and it was a lovely experience for me–I’m not so sure it was for them, but I didn’t see any eye-rolling on screen to my inane questions so they are also incredibly professional as well.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here either, but I also have an essay in the upcoming book from Mystery Writers of America Presents, How to Write a Mystery, edited by Lee Child and Laurie R. King. I know, right? I still have to pinch myself whenever I think about it. I got an ARC recently, and the book looks simply beautiful. And how awesome to be in a collection with some of the top writers in the field? I can now cross “be in an MWA anthology” off my bucket list–but “get selected for an MWA anthology through the blind read process” remains on the list. My essay is called “Writing the Talk” and is about dialogue, and it owes a heavy debt to editor Laurie R. King, who whipped it (and me) into publishable shape after a couple of rewrites and revisions.

And yes, there will be more about that later. 🙂

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. May your Tuesday be bright and fun and wonderful.

Avalanche

Monday; the dawn of a new week with endless possibilities as well as the potential for endless irritations, aggravations, and anything else negative you might be able to dream up.

Yesterday I started making my way through the most recent iteration of #shedeservedit–which isn’t, or may not, require as much work as I ha originally thought–and I also had my editorial call about Bury Me in Shadows, which wasn’t the terror I feared it would be; it was most pleasant, some great suggestions for smoothing the flow of the book an making it read better than it does in its current iteration. Enormous sigh of relief in both instances. I know, I know, I shouldn’t always be so nervous about my writing, but there is a very real fear in my brain that the day will come when I will lose the ability to do this, to create and write stories an characters for people to engage with, get to know, and spend time with.

And no, I don’t know why I still have this anxiety. I have to date published over thirty novels (I don’t know how many total, really, and I don’t feel like going back and counting again) and have two more in the pipeline to get published and yet….I still suffer anxiety about being a writer, about being any good at it, and then, as if that isn’t enough, I also have anxiety about it all going away and not being able to do it anymore–and this happens any time I get stuck, or as a deadline looms, or whenever I just don’t want to do it, which is pretty much all of the time. I never cease to be amazed at how often I have to force myself to do things I actually enjoy and love to do. It makes literally no sense whatsoever.

Take going to the gym, as another example. Every single time I go to the gym, I have to make myself do it. Once I am in the gym, it’s a constant mental struggle to remain and do the entire workout without skipping anything. The great irony is that these “get back into it” workouts are actually having an effect on my body. I am down to 203 pounds–it’s been at least since 2011 since I weighed less than 205, and there were times when I thought I would never see 210 ever again–and my goal weight for this year was 200…and I am almost there by mid-March already. I can’t see myself going down much further than 200, to be honest; already my clothes are getting far too big for me and with my weird body-shape, at this point weighing less than 200 would make me look pretty strange. I need to really focus on building up my leg muscles, because that’s the real issue, but I also worry that the way they are shaped won’t make a difference if they get bigger; I need to them to get wider across when looked at from front or back–from front to back they are fairly thick already. I don’t think I can make them wider simply because of the way my leg muscles are shaped, if that makes any sense. Anyway, that’s really a long way of saying how happy I am that my body is reacting to the exercise and that I’ve lost some more weight. Perhaps that will motivate me to go and next time I won’t have to make myself.

Good one. It almost sounded convincing.

And on that note, it’s back to the spice mines with me! See you tomorrow, Constant Reader!

Bizarre Love Triangle

Recently I got a very lovely private message on social media from a reader; it doesn’t happen near as much as it used to (not sure what that says about me or my career, but I prefer to believe that I am so public with my social media and blog that people don’t feel they need to reach out to me…don’t judge me; it works for me. I often prefer the little fantasy world and life I make up in my head rather than reality. It keeps me sane) so now it’s a surprise on the rare occasions it happens, and that’s very pleasant.

And with this one, it just goes to show what you can do without meaning to, and how the inability to make a decision is sometimes a good thing.

The message was simply that he had recently discovered my books, and was reading and enjoying them. What drove him to reach out and send me a message wasn’t simply because he was enjoying my work but because it was the first time he’d seen anything that mirrored his real life relationship in fiction; in other words, he is in what is now referred to as a “long-time throuple” and it meant a lot to him to read a book series centered around a main character who is also in a ‘long-time throuple.’ This isn’t the first time I’ve gotten such a message–I’ve heard from other readers in throuples, or readers enthralled by the very idea of such a thing, but like I said, it’s been a while. It always catches me a little off-guard, because it never occurred to me that I was doing something revolutionary, or something that had never been done before in crime fiction or not done much outside of erotica; the truth was I couldn’t make up my mind who Scotty should wind up with finally, so I had him wind up with both of them. It never occurred to me that I was doing something never really done before–or that some nearly twenty years later, I’d still be one of the only ones writing about a throuple–there wasn’t even a term for it when Bourbon Street Blues came out all those years ago; I always had to call it a “three-way relationship”–I don’t even think I’d even heard the term polyamorous then, either. I had no idea how such a thing would work, either; but Scotty was unconventional and so it stood to reason his romantic relationship would also be such. I also wanted to make the relationship seem as normal as possible and like it wasn’t unconventional; no one ever comments on it, says that’s odd or unusual, has ever questioned Scotty about having two partners rather than one. I also never wanted to write about jealousy or any of the usual romantic melodramatic devices–they all love each other; there’s never any jealousy; and while Colin sometimes, in the course of his job, does things that seem criminal or dangerous or even endanger them, there’s never any question about expelling him from the relationship–and there’s always a sense of sadness from Scotty and Frank until everything gets cleared up.

I also like to believe that Scotty and Frank and Scotty’s family are Colin’s rock, his tether to the normal world outside of espionage and international spying. New Orleans is his safe place, where he can relax and let down his guard and just be a normal, if extremely hot and sexy, guy. Sometimes I write myself into a corner–which I kind of did with Royal Street Reveillon, and figuring out where the boys go from where I left them isn’t always easy–Twelfth Night Knavery is going to be an incredibly difficult book to write, from that perspective–but that’s part of the challenge of writing the series, and part of the reason I enjoy writing it so much. I stopped writing Chanse because the stories and the series and the character were beginning to feel stale to me…but I greatly enjoyed writing my Chanse short story “My Brother’s Keeper” for Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories, and there’s a Change novella I am tinkering around with that may wind up being a novel–I doubt it, so don’t get your hopes up–but again, I am enjoying writing shorter pieces about Chanse; I can’t imagine doing a Scotty short story if for no other reason that backstory alone would take up the length of the short story.

Yesterday I ran errands, paid some more bills, and went to the gym. When I got back from the gym I indulged in some cleaning and organizing, and then discovered that old episodes of Moonlighting are on Youtube, so I watched the pilot yesterday around watching other Youtube videos, mostly those Queer Cruise videos about queer representation and how queers were presented in old twentieth century television shows, and how that changed over the decades. But Moonlighting–I absolutely loved that show back when it was airing, despite it being a deeply troubled show, often behind schedule with all kinds of behind the scenes drama and clashes, between producers and actors, between the actors, and with the network. It was a highly bizarre show, occasionally indulging in incredible creative choices (the black-and-white episode called “The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice”, the Shakespeare episode, and probably one of the best Christmas episodes of any show ever produced), and watching young Bruce Willis in the role that made him a star–he later became a surprise movie star, which no one saw coming, with Die Hard–and of course, the chemistry between him and co-star Cybill Shepherd literally burned up the screen with their “will they/won’t they” dynamic. It was always clever, sometimes meta (often meta, before anyone even knew what meta was) and there was nothing like it on television before–or since, really. Witty and clever and uniquely self-aware, the quality was difficult to maintain in the face of all the production problems, and finally the show finally went off the rails and was eventually canceled. But I still remember it fondly, and it was actually lovely to rewatch and see that the pilot still works. One of the things I loved most about the show was that almost every episode began with David and Maddie arguing, both certain they are right–and then the case would bring them around to seeing the other’s point of view, so that by the end of the episode they understood each other better. It was inspired writing, and something I always wanted to do with my work (I’ve never done it)–but while I couldn’t mimic that with either series of my own, I always wanted my main character to learn something from the case he is working on, about himself, and grow a little bit.

At least that was the plan. Whether I’ve managed to do so or not remains to be seen–as well as it not really being up to me to decide these things…

Today I am diving back into the book headlong; yesterday’s grocery-making and gym visit sufficiently drained me of excess energy so writing/editing/etc wasn’t really in yesterday’s cards, alas. But that’s okay. The gym was marvelous and necessary, as was the cleaning and organizing I did–I need to do more, really–and while I know I need to get better organized (I really need to make a to-do list) I am not going to do anything like that before I work on the book. I know I’ll wind up not wanting to if I put it off until later, and while the organizing is terribly important, as is the to-do-list, I really need to work on the book more than anything else.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines.

Academic

And just like that, it’s Saturday again, and huzzah to everyone for making it through another week. It’s another beautiful morning here in New Orleans; the sun already high and shining bright, the sky bright blue. I have errands to run and the gym to get to, and then I am planning on spending the rest of the day reading the manuscript and editing it. It will be a full day here in the Lost Apartment, and I relish getting back to work on my book. I hate being behind–this was the month I was supposed to spend getting caught up on everything else and finishing short stories so next month I could focus on Chlorine–but delays and things happen, as always, and sure, I am in that time of life where one is acutely aware of how quickly the sand is slipping through the hourglass–but I have also learned to not beat myself up over things I have little control over. I have no control over whether I sleep well, for example, and I have no control over my energy levels. I can do the best that I can, but I exert only so much control over any of those things.

Not allowing myself to get upset or stressed over things I cannot control is a lesson I am still learning, alas.

I often feel pulled in many directions (and am fully aware that this is probably the case for everyone; it seems as though everyone is having a rough time since the pandemic shut down the world last year–almost a full year ago; we closed down services at my day job on March 16th) with an inevitable amount of endless tasks for everything I am involved in, and usually every day I have an idea of what I want and/or need to get done with every day; and yet I never achieve those goals because inevitably something new pops in and/or pops up that requires attention of some sort from me, and this inevitably results in me not getting to everything that needs getting to, which then makes the to-do list seem even more endless, and on and on. Part of the problem I’ve been having since the pandemic altered everything is my inability to sit down and make an actual to-do list–because the to-do list would inevitably require me to get through all of my emails, and I sometimes have neither the strength nor the patience to work my way through them all. Right now in my primary in-box I have 56 unread emails–I’ve already deleted the trek–and there’s about another 100 or so in there I’ve already read that probably need a response, or an addition to my to-do list.

I also remembered last night, as Paul and I watched the LSU gymnastics team defeat Missouri, that I’ve never finished watching two shows I really liked and was enjoying that he didn’t–Perry Mason on HBO Max and Penny Dreadful: City of Angels on Showtime. So those, along with a rewatch binge of Megan Abbott’s Dare Me, should go on my list of things to watch while I am making condom packs–or when I am done with work for the day and Paul’s not home. I was quite delighted that he came home from the office so we could watch the gymnastics; I am not really seeing a lot of him these days and so those moments when he is home are more to be cherished and enjoyed because of their rarity. I am a Festival widow every March, really; but this year more so than any other I am really looking forward to the Festival being over.

I also would like to get back into reading some more…I’m not sure what in my brain is broken, but for some reason I can’t read anything other than the chapter of so of Gore Vidal’s Lincoln that I get through every morning. I think it’s a combination of all the things I have hanging over my head, quite frankly, that keeps me from reading–and as I’ve also said, watching television or a movie or even just Youtube videos is much more passive than active and requires little to no brain power. I did come up with a couple of great titles yesterday for short stories as I made my condom packs and continued watching videos about queer representation in films and television from the 1960’s through the 1990’s; there was a lovely little video yesterday of how the Queer Cruise videos guy was helped to come out by viewing The Rocky Horror Picture Show when he was in high school; and that got me thinking about my own history with Rocky Horror, and what it meant to me; perhaps yet another essay someday. Is that still shown as a midnight movie? I would imagine not, given the pandemic and the fact that’s been on television and available to purchase on tape or download now for decades; I remember thinking the first time it aired on television well, that’s the end of that and it honestly did feel like the end of an era. I imagine many freaks and weirdos and queer kids no longer need something like The Rocky Horror Picture Show as a gateway to their own worlds and the possibilities that life holds for them…there’s more and more queer rep all the time, in books, movies, plays, and television; although I would imagine in more repressive parts of the country Rocky Horror would still be a revelation.

And now I am thinking about writing a short story or a book about a murder built around a midnight showing of the movie. Oy, it really never ends…

I also like this other idea for a story I came up with yesterday: “The Rites of False Spring.” I scribbled down a lot of notes about that one.

And on that note, the spice won’t mine itself, so I should probably head on into the mines.

All The Way

And now it’s Thursday, and the work-at-home before the weekend part of the weekly cycle begins. It’s beautiful outside my widows this morning; all bright and sunny and clear blue sky as far as the eye can see. It might be cold out there–I’ve not checked–and I am liking the idea that the temperature inside is not an indication any more of what it might be outside. Huzzah for new HVAC system!

I was very tired when I got home from work last evening–I also had to run a few errands on my way home–and I watched the second episode of Superman and Lois (more on that later) before falling into another wormhole on Youtube. There’s a very interesting series of videos on a channel called “Dave Knows Wrestling” (I think) about the history of professional wrestling as well as critiques of current trends and so forth present currently in that world. I don’t know how accurate any of this is–I’ve spotted errors in numerous history videos, and it’s the Internet, so take everything with a grain of salt–and then I found a wonderful Youtube channel which looks at queer representation in the culture back in the day; Matt Baume is the guy who does them, and they are quite lovely, looking at the evolution of how queer people were represented on television back in the day. I watched his videos about gay characters appearing on shows like Cheers, Phyllis, Mary Hartman Mary Hartman, The Golden Girls, and of course Frasier, as well as episodes centering same-sex attractions, kind of like a television version of Vito Russo’s definitive The Celluloid Closet. (I’ve actually been hoping someone would either update Russo’s book or do a sequel. Someone probably has an I just don’t know it; I am hardly the font of all knowledge, no matter how much I would like to consider myself to be exactly that.)

I did wonder, though, while I watching one of his videos about drag artist Charles Ludlam appearing on one of the final episodes of a one-season sitcom starring Madeline Kahn called Oh, Madeline, if he knows about a very short-lived Norman Lear sitcom based on the play The Hot L Baltimore, which was about a seedy residential hotel and the people who lived there–Conchita Farrell played a hooker–and it also had a gay couple. It didn’t last very long and I would imagine it would be difficult to find archival footage of the show; but it was also a great idea for a sitcom or a modern dramedy; it would be interesting to see what someone like Shonda Rimes or even Ryan Murphy could do with an adaptation of the play into a series. (I really should be running a television network.)

As Constant Reader will remember, I enjoyed the premier episode of Superman and Lois and really loved this new take on the Superman mythos. Clark and Lois as parents, moving back to Smallville to become a closer family unit with their twin sons, is pretty terrific, and the casting is absolutely perfect. I worried the quality and likability of the show might begin to siphon off in future episodes, but the storytelling is quite excellent and I love the nuanced look at what is happening in small towns like Smallville–or what has happened to them. I also like they didn’t go with the usual “Lex Luthor is our big bad guy and enemy of Superman” trope; rather there’s a threat from an off-worlder (referred to by his computer as “Captain Luthor”) and the real, Earth big bad is a billionaire named Morgan Edge–who was introduced into the comic books series during the 1970’s. I am enjoying this so much that I am thinking I might want go back and finish watching Arrow, give The Flash another chance, and start watching the other Arrowverse shows. Batwoman looks terrific, and so does Stargirl, and I am also still hoping for a third season of Titans. I never did get to see the second and final season of Krypton; I enjoyed the first season (I always loved whenever the comics would explore something about Krypton, and John Byrne’s mini-series The World of Krypton is still one of my all-time favorite comics) and still hold out some hope that Warner Brothers and HBO might bring it back for another season….there was so much to still be explored.

So I am working from home today, and am about to head into the spice mines. I have some data entry to do and there’s always condom packs to make, of course; not sure what I want to watch while I make them today; not really in the mood for a movie. I was thinking about revisiting Megan Abbott’s wonderful television show Dare Me–hey, I’m writing about high school students currently, and why not watch a show developed and produced by one of our best writers based on one of her amazing novels? I was also thinking, for the times when I am not in the mood for a slasher/horror or a Cynical 70’s or a teen movie, that I should find an old television program and watch it from the beginning and binge it all the way to the end. Paul and I never finished watching The Sopranos, for one example–Katrina interrupted our viewing–and I have never seen The Wire, either, for that matter. Alas, my education in television classics is just as inadequate as my education in film and literature…something to consider, of course.

And on that note, I have data to enter and condoms to pack, so it’s best for me to head back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I will see you again tomorrow.

All Day Long

And now it’s Wednesday, which is also pay-the-bills day as well as payday. Huzzah?

Huzzah? Huzzah. It’s best to pay them no matter how depressing that task may prove to be in the end. Bills, death, and taxes–all of them, inevitable and unyielding.

It rained and was grim all day yesterday; most unpleasant, actually. By the time I came home from work, the temperature had dropped down into the forties, and the Lost Apartment was very cold inside. But wait–we have an entire new HVAC system; let me try the heat! So I did as instructed; turned both upstairs and downstairs thermostats from cool to heat, set the temperature at 68 degrees….and within half an hour the difference was amazing. I turned them both down a little further when I went to bed last night–I was exhausted, falling into bed at nine thirty, exhausted and already have dozed off in my easy chair–and this morning when I woke up it was still pleasant inside. I just checked the temperature–48 outside–and it is not cold in the Lost Apartment. Repeated: it is not cold in the Lost Apartment, upstairs or downstairs.

Which makes me think the problem was never our high ceilings in the first place, but rather the system.

I was very tired yesterday, too–some combination of the rainy cold and perhaps not sleeping as well as I might have preferred on Monday night, plus sometimes counseling people is emotionally and physically draining. Most days when I get off work I am not that tired–sometimes I am even a bundle of energy, bouncing off the walls–but last night wasn’t one of those. I was very tired when I got home from work and found myself drifting off to sleep as I watched History videos on Youtube (mostly about the fourteenth century; the Black Death, the Hundred Years’ War, and the She-Wolf of France), so finally at nine thirty I decided to stop fighting it and go upstairs to bed. I slept extremely well last night–I woke up at four, stayed in bed for another two hours, drifting in and out of restful sleep and my body feeling completely relaxed, which was also lovely, so this morning I feel rested and ready to go. (We’ll see how long that lasts, won’t we?)

And so, while I will be paying the bills this morning and updating my check register (yes, I am old school; I keep the check register because I have too many autopay charges every month and so I have to keep track of what I have and what is available for me to actually spend), here’s hoping it won’t be the odious chore it all too frequently is. I’ve not even touched my manuscript since I got the extension–sometimes, time away from it is necessary, and I was not in a place good enough to do good editorial work on it–but I am going to dive headfirst into it tonight when I get home from the gym (I skipped because I didn’t want to walk to the gym in the cold rain yesterday), and then of course it’s my two work-at-home days of the week sliding into the weekend. I always consider it a win when I make it through these early mornings of getting up at six–and I am getting so used to it I am starting to get up early again on my days off–shades of the days when I got up at seven every morning for years!

And wide awake at seven, at that. I sometimes miss those days of highly productive mornings…..

And on that note, I am off to the spice mines! Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader!

Chosen Time

Monday, Monday–can’t trust that day.

It was seventy one degrees yesterday morning when I started writing this post–I just deleted an entire paragraph about how lovely the weather has been lately; needless to say, the weather yesterday has turned on me; it wasn’t cold or anything, but rather chilly-damp and overcast, and the wind had a cold bite to it. The highs apparently for the next few days are in the low 60’s, dipping into the 40’s at night. Yay. But it will, I suppose, give us an opportunity to try out the new HVAC system’s heat. The air conditioning has dramatically improved quality of life in the Lost Apartment–the downstairs gets actually cold with the air on now–so we shall see how the heating works–if it becomes necessary. If it’s not going to drop other than when I am actually sleeping–who cares? I sleep better in the cold anyway. I certainly didn’t want to get out of my blanket cocoon this morning.

I’ve been watching Allen v. Farrow on HBO Max, and it’s harrowing. I didn’t really follow the case at the time–it was the early 90’s, and while we had 24/7 cable news channels already, our primary source of “going viral” was stories on those news channels and the tabloids in the supermarket checkout line. I knew one of Mia Farrow’s younger children had accused him of molestation; I also knew he had become involved with one of her adopted children who was in high school at the time the relationship started. I also knew that Woody Allen dismissed everything as “the rantings of a jealous and vindictive woman”, and continued to have a career in Hollywood. I was never a big fan of his in the first place–my favorite Allen film was Bullets over Broadway, which is one of the few films in which he himself didn’t appear–and so it wasn’t really a sacrifice to stop watching. But watching this documentary is…much more horrifying. This week’s episode, in which Farrow admits she didn’t have an agent during the period in which she starred in every movie he made, “I didn’t need an agent…I was working with Woody and he said, just use mine….I didn’t think I could get an agent, who’d want to represent me? I was in my thirties”–that was jarring. Ageism in Hollywood right there–and I also do remember that people did say things like “she’s only in his movies because she’s sleeping with him”–despite the fact she was actually a very gifted actress–she was convinced that because she was in her thirties, she’d have no career except for the opportunities Woody Allen was giving her…and he undermined her, gaslit her, to keep her under his control. The show is quite disturbing on every level–and we’re only two episodes in. (I also kept thinking, as I watched, “I bet every minute of this documentary has been viewed, scrutinized, and vetted by HBO’s lawyers.”)

Just chilling.

Although I have to admit in watching the clips from his films in the documentary, I started actually thinking, maybe I should watch some of these older films…and then backed away from that thought very quickly.

My education in American film project doesn’t need to include Woody Allen’s canon.

As I sit here looking out into the gray of the morning, I can see that it’s windy outside. The sky is concealed behind a layer of gray clouds, so I don’t think there will be any sun today; it’s going to be gloomy and unpleasant, methinks, for most of the day. I need to go to the gym this evening after work–getting back into the swing of the routine after the cold spell interrupted me for about a week–and I do enjoy going to the gym; I am hoping that as long as I keep up my thrice-weekly visits, I will eventually get to the point where I am doing a more intense workout focusing on body parts, which means, of course, a return of Leg Day, which isn’t something I am looking forward to doing again, frankly. I do find the gym therapeutic in some ways, and I also like the rush of the endorphins that comes afterwards, as I walk back home through the neighborhood. And yet I always have to make myself go–just like I always have to force myself to sit down and write. Why do I have to make myself do things I enjoy thoroughly? I may never know the answer to that, I fear.

I’ve become very contemplative lately, and I think it’s a combination of many things, not the least of which is turning sixty this year. My previous “landmark” birthdays were inevitably not a big deal; I never make a big deal of my birthday and reaching various ages–thirty, forty, fifty–weren’t traumatic or upsetting or anything like that for me; it was more like a “oh, well I’m thirty/forty/fifty now” and that was the end of it. But this sixty thing has taken root in my brain, and I’m not really certain why sixty seems like more of a landmark to me than the earlier ones. It isn’t that I am getting depressed or anything like that, or like I’m facing gym own mortality for the first time–that happened a long fucking time ago, thank you, HIV/AIDS pandemic–but this time is different. I’ve always–well, since I turned thirty-three–been of the mindset that nostalgia is pointless and wasted emotion, and regret is even more useless; you can’t change anything, after all, no matter how much you regret a choice or a behavior. But dissecting the past is an entirely different story; examining behaviors and decisions and actions. A long time ago I stopped trying to figure out why other people behave the way they do as a waste of time–I will never know why, so why waste my time trying to figure out motivations when I can simply take their behavior at face value? But my motivations–why I am the way I am–that is something I can deconstruct and decipher; and the assumption that my pre-33 past no longer has any impact on my life is short-sighted, to say the least.

Sigh. I don’t know.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I promise not to skip tomorrow.

Brutal

Yesterday wasn’t bad, really. It was kind of nice and relaxing, and I spent some time cleaning, which is always calming and therapeutic, not to mention fantastic to see when you are finished. I also did a lot of filing and organizing, and while I didn’t completely finish everything yesterday, there are some odds and ends to find a place for and so forth, but in all honesty, this is the best the workspace has looked in a long time. I even got a start on cleaning the disgusting ceiling fans; it’s going to probably require some work every weekend before they don’t look revolting. I just wish I didn’t have a phobia of ladders and the constant fear that I am going to fall off said ladder and kill myself–I get very anxious when I am up on the ladder and still have to stretch to reach the blades–which is partly why they are in such bad shape. I don’t trust aluminum ladders–far too shaky for someone who, as a child, fell off one and was lucky not to be seriously injured–and so I bought a wooden ladder, but stupidly, even though it is sturdy enough for me to not worry because it doesn’t shake with every step up I take, I bought a five foot ladder when I need a six foot ladder at least. Heavy heaving sigh. As it is, I don’t have a place where I can store this one, so it’s not like I can go back out and buy another.

I also need to look into getting another tool for cleaning the blades. The one I have isn’t easy to use; it’s angled, so it also doesn’t go right onto the blades–and since the fans hand a minimum of three feet down from the ceiling (the joys of high ceilings in New Orleans) I am also always paranoid I am going to somehow knock it out of the ceiling–there’s always that moment of catching my breath as I try to get the whatever-you-call-it onto the blades and it starts swinging. Yikes!

But I cleaned out cabinets, cleaned out garbage cans, wiped down walls–New Orleans is the dustiest place I’ve ever lived, and I lived in Kansas, as well as the desert climate of Fresno, California–and even did some baseboards. I was thinking about starting to prune the books, too–but I also need to talk to the library about how to drop off donated books before I go crazy with getting rid of books, so I decided it should wait. (I also started looking to see what could go and found myself reverting back into hoarder mode…which wasn’t a good sign.)

My package from Target, order placed on February 13 for two day delivery, finally arrived yesterday–a full two weeks after the order was placed. I know the mail is fucked up, but they also didn’t prepare my order for delivery for a full two days before it was packaged up, then it took another several days for it to be handed over to UPS, and then it sat, first in Birmingham and then in Mississippi (I want to say Jackson), for a very long time. It finally was handed over to the USPS for delivery in New Orleans on Friday, and it came yesterday. Good thing it wasn’t medication or.a gift I needed right away.

When Paul got home last night we got caught up on last week’s episodes of Servant (which gets increasingly strange and disturbing with every episode) and Resident Alien, which we are really enjoying. I think Paul will also be going into the office today and at some point it’s a gym day for me–but it already looks gorgeous outside. The weather, since that cold spell, has been exceptionally beautiful here in New Orleans–even hot; I usually think of the seventies as being cooler weather, but it has felt hot to me ever since the weather changed; an after-effect of that brutal cold, I think.

Today’s plan is to try to finish putting things away and get last night’s dinner dishes washed and put into the dishwasher, got to the gym, make some progress on cleaning out my email inboxes, and try to have, over all, a relaxing day.

And on that note, those dishes won’t wash themselves. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader!

Fine Line

Saturday rolling into our lives and taking no prisoners!

I slept really well last night, which was a good thing. Yesterday wasn’t a good day–suffice it to say I got through it–and after I finished my work-at-home duties I went to the gym, which was lovely (and my muscles are feeling it this morning, which is perfectly fine with me). Paul will be going in to the office later this morning and most likely will be gone for the rest of the dy, leaving me home alone. It occurred to me the other day that this year’s Festival widowhood is different; usually I don’t get off work most nights until eight or so, so I only have a few hours home alone in the evenings before he gets home. Me finishing work every day by five stretches the entire evening out in front of me alone; I think that might be part of the doldrums. It’s noticeable in a non-pandemic year, but this year those lonely evenings are taking a bit of a toll on me. Paul has always been my favorite person to spend time with, and always will be; his absence is always noticeable.

I asked for a two week extension on my deadline for the book, and they actually gave me a month. The weight of that deadline stress lifting off my shoulders was considerable; that means I can try to spend this weekend getting caught up on everything else that has been piling up (and dear God, has it ever been piling up) while also working on the book without the great stress of “oh my GOD it’s due on Monday!”) as well as working on cleaning. Cleaning for some reason is calming and relaxing to me–plus being occupied with my hands frees up my mind to be creative (Agatha Christie said, in my favorite writer quote of all time, “my house is never so clean as when I am on deadline”). I’m also becoming less attached to my books, which are sprawling everywhere and taking up so much room it isn’t even funny. My goal is by June to have cleared out, through donating to the Latter Library’s weekend book sales, most of the piles of books. Should we ever have the means or find a place to live that will provide me with an actual room to serve as my office–so I can have walls and walls of bookshelves–I should have no problem whatsoever with filling those shelves. It’s a long time project, of course, and will require, in many instances, the purchasing or repurposing of boxes, but the truth is the only books I should be holding onto are research ones–and even those can be replaced with ebooks as needed; and let’s face it, ebooks are much easier to use than hard copies because you can search for key phrases and words, etc. much easier than flipping to the index and so forth.

The pandemic, of course, has had a lot to do with the weird, eerie, dream-like existence of the last year; and these additional stressors in my life have, like the Katrina aftermath, affected my short term memory. This entire last year–our office officially shut down services on March 16th last year–is kind of blurry to me; I don’t remember when this happened or when that happened and so forth; I thought, for example, we had closed down earlier than March 16th and opened up for limited services much later than we actually did. I have no recollection of my birthday in August. This is also kind of understandable, as there were none of the usual markers of the year that generally mark the passing of time: no Southern Decadence condom outreach, no Halloween, no Jazz Fest, no Bouchercon, no board meeting in New York in January. I miss those things; I miss my annual events and seeing everyone that I usually see and the social interactions…and given my general misanthropist attitude, that is saying a lot. I miss my friends, I miss my co-workers, I miss the way things used to be. (I do not, however, miss the past administration in the least.) And that’s okay; that’s normal, and I really need to get to a place and point in life where I stop beating myself up for, you know, having the same feelings and experiences everyone has.

I’ve been doing a lot of unpacking in my mind over the last few weeks of issues–and yes, pain–from my past as well as reexamining things that happened. I’ve always been hesitant to write about my past–I’ve always been uncomfortable about writing my memories or a memoir or anything like that, simply because none of the people I’ve known and/or interacted with over the years ever gave me permission to write about them, or tell my version of their stories, which is also why I generally don’t talk about people I know or interactions with them or so forth on here. What constitutes an invasion of privacy in these cases? I really don’t want to find out the hard way. But I am going to start, I think, writing personal essays that will most likely never see the light of day–or maybe, I don’t know. But writing about things has always been the easiest and best way for me to process and deal with them, and while I may not want to pull off the scabs in public here on my blog…I don’t know, maybe someday I could pull together a collection of them. I know when I was using the discography of the Pet Shop Boys for my blog titles last year I kept thinking that not only do their songs have great titles, but those titles would also make great titles for essays, as well as great starting points and inspirations for the essays themselves. Do I have anything interesting to say, anything deep or profound? As Eve Harrington said as she accepted the Sarah Siddons Award for a role written originally for Margo Channing, “everything wise and witty has long since been said–by minds more mature and talents far greater than mine.”

I really need to watch All About Eve again.

So, we will see. Once I finish slurping down my morning coffee and get my gears in order this morning, mayhap I’ll start writing an essay. I am going to spend some time with the manuscript for #shedeservedit–I’ll have the cover art soon, and I can’t wait to share it, y’all–and clean, clean, clean and organize, organize, organize.

I also started watching Allen v. Farrow last night on HBO Max. It’s very well done. I’m very curious to see the rest of it. I never followed the story that closely back in the day–but it was one of those things you couldn’t help but be aware of and everyone had an opinion. I’ve never been a particular fan of Woody Allen, and haven’t seen many of his films–of the ones I’ve seen, my favorite is Bullets over Broadway–nor do I have much inclination to go back and watch them now. I recognize this is yet another one of those “art v. artist” things; and perhaps the distinctions I make in other cases (I won’t watch anything made by Roman Polanski after his crime, but will rewatch both Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown–justifying those as being before he turned to criminal assault against minors, but apparently he was horrible to Faye Dunaway during the production….at the same time Dunaway is also notoriously difficult, so who is at fault in that instance?) are rationalizations to excuse myself. I won’t read Orson Scott Card nor Dan Simmons anymore, and really–there are so many books I want to read that I will never have time to read that cutting bigots out of my reading schedule isn’t an issue. I suppose the same goes for film–I’ll never have the time to watch every movie that I want to watch, so cutting out films made by predators or abusers or bigots really shouldn’t be an issue.

The art v. the artist! That could be an essay!

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader.