Category: college football

While My Heart Is Still Beating

I left work early yesterday because I felt something coming on, and thought it best to come home to try to get ahead of it. Some OTC meds later and I felt much better; so am going to take some of those with me in case, and will mask when I have clients. After work I am going to vote, walking the two blocks to the International School to once again hopefully vote for change in Louisiana. I am cautiously optimistic and not getting my hopes up–this country’s voters have disappointed me too many times in the last twenty-six years to feel confident about anything. The media’s devotion to polling, which has been wrong more than it’s been right this century, really needs to be studied. Somehow everyone has also seemed to have forgotten Nate Silver’s bullshit, and his ass is being treated as reliable again for some reason I don’t know and will probably never understand. And since we have arrived on election day at long last, can we please have a respite from campaigns and money requests for a day or two? I won’t know how this all comes out until tomorrow morning, probably, and depending on what happens will have an impact on my day on Wednesday. I just hope it’s not another hellish J-6 situation…or worse. I will be voting tonight after I get home from work.

I feel much better this morning, thank you for your concern. I brought the DayQuil with me, and yes, I’ll be masking around my clients and co-workers; I don’t want to be Typhoid Greg. I feel fine–no coughing or crud or anything–but better safe than sorry. I’m glad I feel better, and when you have an autoimmune disorder it’s always a bit concerning when you don’t feel well. But I am thinking the heavy rain over the weekend sent my sinuses into overdrive and it all built up until yesterday morning and me feeling like shit. I still have a bit of a tickle in my throat, but I also think that’s from the post-nasal sinus thing.

Sparky doesn’t know the time changed, so he’s trying to wake me up at five every morning, the dear little thing. I don’t get up, of course, but he gets really insistent now when the alarm goes off, so snooze is currently a thing of the past, or at least until his body clock gets reset, and who knows when that will be? He also thought it was dinner time when I got home from work early, so of course, that was a bit of a hassle. He did cuddle in my lap for a while, but when the meds kicked in, he was gone. I did manage to do some chores when I was feeling better, and I made chicken noodle soup for dinner, which also made me feel much better. We started watching a Spanish language show on Netflix, Fate, which is about a cab driver whom a bullfighter decides is his good luck charm, and gets hired on to drive him–but it has to be the cab. It looks interesting, there are only six episodes, and they appear to all be about a half an hour per. Some other shows we like are coming back this week, too, and of course, I have those Friday the 13th the Series DVD’s. There is also a lot of good football this weekend: Missouri-Texas, LSU-Alabama, Ohio State-Oregon, Miami-Notre Dame, Mississippi-Georgia, South Carolina-A&M, and Florida-Oklahoma, so that should make for a tense but fun day. The Saints are also playing on Saturday. I have to come into the office Friday morning for a department meeting, and I’ll probably put a few more hours in while I am here before departing for the day and starting my weekend. I want and need to get back into writing more this week, after not really doing much the last few weeks other than editing, and I also need to find a place to send my story that I wrote for the Bouchercon anthology when I had the deadline incorrect.

A new newsletter went out yesterday; (in which I discuss Tananarive Due’s terrific Mazywood) click on the parenthetical if you’d like to read it.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Hope you have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning…I’m almost afraid to go to bed tonight because of what tomorrow may bring, but it will have to be faced at some point. Sigh. Till then.

A recent Playgirl Man of the Month, but won’t get banned by the censors. I plan to write about Playgirl someday for the newsletter.

More Than This

Monday and back to the office with me today. Lovely lazy day just recuperating and laying around, doing things when I felt like it, and basically just had a marvelous time being lazy and resting without feeling any guilt, and did feel worn out all day, like my batteries needed recharging. We had an early dinner with friends I’d not seen in almost a decade, if not more–which was marvelous. Paul is in the final stages of whatever crud he had last week, which is an enormous relief, of course. Yesterday just thinking about getting up this morning and my end of the month duties at the office and had no concept of having the energy to do everything–but this morning I feel rested, awake and alert, which is a very good thing. Yesterday was also the first day of Nonfiction November; so I read the introduction and forward to She Kills by Skip Hollandsworth (I keep wanting to write Hollingsworth!), which whetted my appetite to dive into it some more. I also need to get back to work on writing. I plan on working on a short story every week as well as a chapter of the book; it’s ambitious, of course, and probably overly so, but that’s fine. I don’t berate myself anymore when I don’t deliver on my own plans. I’m also disappointed with myself for not getting pictures of Halloween decorations around the city again this year, but…the weather has changed now, so I can start taking my walks in the evenings and mornings of the weekend to try to get my stamina built back up again so I can walk to the gym. I did get my headphones synced with my phone over the weekend, so I can either listen to books, podcasts, or music while I am walking and/or lifting weights, which would be absolutely awesome.

I was saddened, as so many others were, by the death of Sir Patrick Stewart, a brilliant actor and a longtime queer ally. One of my favorite Stewart performances will always be his supporting turn in Jeffrey, a rom-com-in-the-time-of-AIDS movie; he literally stole the film right out from under his co-stars effortlessly. After the movie came out, people were asking him, fairly regularly, if he were gay and his response was perfect: Why does nobody ask me if I am really a starship captain? I always enjoyed him in everything he did; oh, those classically trained British actors are so remarkable, aren’t they?

Saturday night I really didn’t pay much attention to the college games that were on and didn’t watch any of them, and am not actually sure who all won and who all lost–or who they actually played. I do know, however, that USC beat Ohio State. Aw, what a shame. I blame Vivek Ramaswamy. The Saints were off for the weekend, but this coming weekend is Alabama-LSU in Baton Rouge, which is always daunting. LSU has only beaten Alabama four times since 2008–twice in Baton Rouge, twice in Tuscaloosa, so home field advantage doesn’t really apply in this instance. There aren’t many teams who play Alabama regularly and have a winning record against them; the few teams that do have winning records against the Tide usually only play them in the post-season, and even amongst those there aren’t many. I am just hoping for a good game, honestly. I need to see who else is playing this weekend, too.

I cannot wait for this election to be over because I am so sick to death of campaigns and elections…will we even get a day respite before the 2028 campaigns start? Please note: elections were never supposed to be a billion dollar plus industry. a lot of people make a lot of money off campaigns, which just adds to the utter corruption of the entire process; US politics has become an embarrassment of bribes, corruption, and dirty back room double-dealing. The system has alwys been a morass od bigotry, slander, and smears masquerading as policy–and our uneducated voters will decide to vote based on emotion rather than careful consideration every single time. Imagine being so racist and ignorant that you will vote for inflation, higher gas and energy prices, and a Nazi-like purge of brown people from this country happily because you’re so arrogant you think none of it will blow back on you?

And man, did Michigan dodge a bullet with that piece of shit Haley Stevens or what? Congratulations, you ignorant bitch, for accomplishing something I didn’t think possible: uniting the Democrats behind a Muslim. When even Chuck Schumer calls you out for Islamophobia–girl, you done fucked up in the worst possible way, and blew up any chance of a political future for yourself. People are speculating she wants to torpedo el-Sayed so she can run again against Mike Rogers when he comes up for reelection; that’s never going to happen now, bitch. You can run against him in the Republican primary if he somehow manages to win this race, but the only vote you’ll ever get, you skank, in a Democratic primary will be your own. Although she can always try to run against el-Sayed in six years as a Republican, I suppose–but when you’ve exposed yourself to the world and ripped off your mask to show the craven opportunist that was always there. Fuck you and your fiance, bitch, and for the sake of the rest of the world do not breed. Your outsides, while ugly as all fuck, isn’t as ugly as your inside.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, everyone, and of course I will be here again in the morning.

The rape of Persephone by Hades. Art, with titles like this, is why I thought “rape” meant kidnapping when I was growing up…

The Main Thing

Sunday morning in the Lost Apartment, and I feel worn out and tired and in need of rest and a bit of a down day to recover from the overnight in Baton Rouge and the Louisiana Book Festival. I’m not used to being “on” in public anymore–it was always draining–and apparently that is still the case. The drive back wasn’t terrible until I got past the airport, and the skies opened and two hours of thunderstorms and flooding rains for the metro area. It took me about an hour, since traffic slowed to a crawl and in times stopping altogether; visibility was incredibly poor and there was about an inch or two of water in places and in others, more. But it wasn’t raining in my neighborhood when I got home, so I was able to get inside without getting horribly soaked. Paul is also feeling better, which is nice, and I didn’t really pay much attention to college games yesterday. I checked in from time to time on scores, but there wasn’t any game that I was willing to sit all the way through. Instead, we finished AHS: 13 (I rolled my eyes a lot through the episode, which I am hoping is the end for AHS, honestly. It’s been hit or miss for a very long time, and I can’t really complain about Ryan Murphy shows when I have no excuses for continuing to watch them. I guess I enjoy them as “hate watches,” so I do get some joy from them.

The Book Festival was nice, and I had no anxiety. My palms were sweating while I moderated, but my body wasn’t all tensed up, and my panelists–Yoon Ha Lee and Kristen Illarmo–were absolute rock stars; smart, funny, and erudite. It was a pleasure moderating, for once, even though I was almost completely ignorant of the subject. Like I said, Yoon and Kristen made it easy for me, and I actually feel a bit more encouraged to attempt it at some point in the future. I also enjoyed listening to their processes and insights on writing scifi. I feel like I learned a lot from them, which made it lovely. The panel I was on was expertly moderated by Ellen Byron, and I appreciated that experience as well, heightened by meeting the recently Anthony nominated Michael Riggs. I also ran into Ashley Elston, which was terrific, but I didn’t see Farrah Rochon. Alas and alack and all that jazz. Oh, well, another time I suppose.

But the extra hour this morning was marvelous.

Iam also ridiculously pleased with myself for finishing Mazywood before Halloween, so I will finish wrapping up Halloween Horror Month when I post my newsletter about the book. The timing was delightful; and now I can dive into Nonfiction November with a clear conscience. I think I may read the first story in Skip Hollandsworth’s She Kills, which I am looking forward to, and revisiting some other nonfiction classics I already love while also diving into new-to-me non-fiction. I am really looking forward to revisiting some favorites like In Cold Blood and Blood and Money. I love nonfiction, but I so rarely read it anymore that I really need to do something about that, but I’ve been getting my nonfiction and history fix from documentaries and Youtube….but I prefer getting it from books.

All right, I’m going to bring this to a close. I plan to have a non-working, non-anything other than r4est day today, and yes, I’ll most likely do some chores and things around here, but primarily today is going to be about rest and relaxation. Hope you have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, as we move into what passed for fall/winter in New Orleans, and of course, I will be here again in the morning.

Take It On The Run

Wednesday and somehow, we’ve made it to the middle of the week. There’s only a few more days left in Spooky Season, so I’ve got to get moving on reading Mazywood, although I can also listen to it on the drive to Baton Rouge and can finish reading it while up there on Friday night, or when I get back to the city on Sunday. My responsibilities for the day end at three, and so I’ll probably get home around five.

Oh, here is my schedule for Saturday in Baton Rouge:

11:00 am to Noon
Iberville Building, Le Francois, Room C
Rebels, Empires, and Impossible Choices in Young Adult Sci-Fi
Kristen Illarmo, Against the Red Sky: Colony Exposed
Yoon Ha Lee, Starstrike
with moderator Greg Herren
(Ages 12 to 17)

1:00 pm to 2:00 pm
Bienville Building, First Floor, Conference Center 173
Killer Calendar: New Orleans Mysteries for Every Season
Ellen Byron, A Murderer’s Guide to Mardi Gras: A Vintage Cookbook Mystery and A Crescent City Christmas: A Vintage Cookbook Mystery
Greg Herren, Hurricane Season Hustle: A Scotty Bradley Mystery
Michael Rigg, Shadows of Frenchmen: A Jonathan Gray, M.D. Mystery

2:15 pm to 3:00 pm
Cavalier House Books Tent
Book Signing

So, as you see, I should be home by five. It shouldn’t be an issue, since I’ll get home early enough to do some things and not be a total loser, if nothing else I can watch the night football games, or not; it looks the evening line-up is Texas-Mississippi State or Missouri-Arkansas; I’m not sure why Georgia-Florida isn’t a marquee night game, but it’s not. I should be able to catch the end of that one; LSU is off this week (the Louisiana Book Festival is always scheduled for LSU’s bye week, in case you’re wondering about priorities in the Pelican State) so not really caring too much to miss games, frankly. It’s also Halloween on Saturday, which will make the drive through town from the interstate interesting. Halloween is a big weekend in New Orleans, as I am sure one can imagine, and we turn the costume dial up to at least 20 on any costuming holiday….even so, I don’t miss going out for the evening, either.

Yesterday was a pretty good day, over all. We weren’t busy but not slow, either, so I didn’t have a lot of down time because I was trying to stay caught up on everything administrative and my other responsibilities. I was feeling a bit tired on the way home when I stopped to make groceries; tonight I have to run uptown to get the mail. I managed to get some things that were weighing on me done yesterday, too–I don’t know why I procrastinate on some things because I don’t want to deal with them at the moment but…it’s never terrible, you know? I always make things worse in my head than they actually are, and the meds don’t help with that, alas.

Apparently we’re cancelling Freddy Krueger because (checks notes) he molested and murdered children…um, he is the villain of the films. Just because he also had funny lines doesn’t mitigate that he’s a predator; are people really this media illiterate? (Ha ha ha, what am I saying? Of course they are.) Freddy isn’t, and never was, the hero: he was a child molester/murderer who was murdered and burned alive by the Elm Street parents, so in the original he was invading the dreams of their children and killing them in their sleep. How that turned him into a pop culture icon was two things: Robert Englund’s scenery chewing performance, and his snarky-funny dialogue. I am sure there are any number of academic tomes, essays, and dissertations on how serial murderers like Michael Meyes, Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Krueger became the heroes of their franchises; we are all primed to root for the main character through being conditioned by media (people think Lolita is a love story, which always makes me roll my eyes)–and you can see the difference in the Scream series, where the killers change in every film and the survivors are the stars. We root for Sidney, not Ghost-face, who is inevitably as witty and snarky as Freddie.

A big shout out in thanks to Kristopher Zgorski–the font of all information, I swear1–who let me know you can buy the entire run of Friday the 13th–The Series on DVD, which will arrive today or tomorrow! Then I can start my gradual re-watch of the show, which will include episodes I’ve not seen; it wasn’t a network show but rather syndicated so I would often forget to watch when it aired. I had friends who also watched and I watched it with them when it was on, or watching an episode they’d recorded. I loved the show and the entire concept behind it–an antique store selling objects cursed by the devil, with each episode centering on one object the team was trying to track down by checking newspapers for odd deaths (if it is ever rebooted–please and thank you, God–they can do the Supernatural thing of looking on-line). I still want to do some kind of supernatural style series of my own a la Sookie Stackhouse/Dark Shadows, but this concept, much as I love it, wouldn’t really work outside of New Orleans and I’d rather do it in a more rural, bayou parish.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely morning and day, Constant Reader, and I will see you again tomorrow morning.

Will this revealing lace pair of briefs escape the eye of the Meta censors? It shouldn’t, since it’s from one of their ads, but we will see, won’t we?

  1. Check out his blog, an excellent source for good reading, by clicking here. ↩︎

Out of Season

Another Monday morning and it’s about time for me to head into the spice mines. I had a very restful and slightly less productive weekend than I would have liked, but isn’t that always the case? I feel good this morning and like it’s going to be a good week, with all kinds of things going on. Friends are coming into town this weekend, I have the Louisiana Book Festival this weekend, and we get an extra hour of sleep on Sunday morning for the last time, thank God. LSU has a bye week, but there are good games Saturday that I’m going to miss, alas. I have to get better organized, and that sounds like a very good plan for this week.

I read more of Mazywood yesterday and it really is most wonderful. Tananarive Due is a Queen, y’all, and you should be reading her–and other diverse writers, too–because one, she’s a fucking incredible writer, and two, we white people need to read more diversely in our choices. I know white people whine about reading outside their own experience, but don’t you want to grow as a person, understand the world a little better, all while having an incredibly enjoyable reading experience? And Mazywood is, above all else, an excellent read, with social commentary woven into the story….one I’m glad Due decided to take on.

It wasn’t a bad day yesterday, even if the Saints lost in Paris yesterday morning. It’s taken me a while to get used to the Saints losing all the time again–the Brees years did spoil us all, and the Saints’ return to previous form took a while to get used to once more. I always suspected the success was a temporary aberration in Saints history, but we have a Super Bowl win, which is more than some teams can say. I ordered groceries to be delivered, and after reading, I actually did some writing and editing, getting back on that horse and it wasn’t terrible. The chapter I need to redo didn’t really require much editorial revision, but I need to read it through again to make sure it flows properly–and I am also ready to move into the next chapter as well, which is progress. I have chores to do tonight that I blew off yesterday, and then I can settle in for the evening. We got caught up on AHS: 13, which is now completely off the rails and makes no sense…because the overarching connected universe of AHS doesn’t make sense either. What can I say? Expecting cohesion and clarity from a Ryan Murphy show is a fool’s game. We also started watching Below on Netflix with Josh Hartnett, who has aged like a fine Dom Perignon. It’s interesting, to say the least, and I am intrigued to get back to it.

Over the weekend, social media reminded me of an under-appreciated gem of a horror series that Paul and I both loved–Penny Dreadful, which was exceptional. Paul and I loved it, and maybe for Halloween Horror Month next year maybe I will revisit the show. Thinking about horror series always makes me think of one of my favorites, Friday the 13th–The Series, which was low-budget but a lot of fun with a great concept I’ve always wanted to borrow. I’ve been trying to find it on streaming for an eternity, and while it’s always been hard to find and never in its entirety, I came across a Hulu channel called Comet that shows two episodes every Sunday at eleven and twelve, so I’ve started recording them for a rewatch project; I also have a fan-written book about the show called Curious Goods that I’ve always wanted to get around to, and should have taken on this month. I forget there’s always horror nonfiction! Bad Greg, bad Greg. After all, Stephen King’s Danse Macabre was the first nonfiction book I read studying a genre in an accessible style.

And on that note, best head into the spice mines before I’m late–which would be a bad augur for the week. Have a great Monday, Constant Reader, and I will be back on the morrow.

Taste the rainbow…

Keep On Loving You

Here we are on Sunday morning and I stayed in bed far too late for me to have any reason to. I didn’t do a whole hell of a lot–there were a lot of great games to watch yesterday; college football is insane this season (more on that later)–besides some chores and brainstorming, but it was, over all, an absolutely lovely day around here. I was dragging a little bit, not going to lie, but by eleven I was parked in my easy chair while Paul departed to workout with his trainer and then ride the bike at the gym, watching the LSU game with Sparky curled up in my lap, which is where he stayed all day. One time when I got up he wouldn’t move, and so I had to carry him to get something to drink, grumbling the entire way, and by the time we were back in the chair, he grumbled, made a circle, and went back to a deep, dreaming sleep so he made interesting noises and twitched every now and then.

Pets are pretty amazing, and I will never understand why people don’t like cats. Sparky is always waiting in my workspace windows when I comehome from work, and once he sees me he jumps down and runs to the front door. It’s so nice, and then he always wants me to pick him up and cuddle with him before he wants down and to eat, and then he camps out in my lap. All of our cats have been affectionate.

The Saints are playing in Paris, even as I type this, but it just feels wrong to be watching a football game over breakfast and coffee.

I did do some brainstorming yesterday for some stories I am working on, and then found all the notes I made for my essay about The Only One Left …and of course didn’t include any of the points and comparisons I had wanted to, which is maddening because they were all smart and insightful. Heavy heaving sigh. Oh, well, can probably use them again at another time, talking about Gothics–because I will most certainly write more about Gothics and my theories about them. I love educating myself–and I no longer worry if my “insights” are nothing new. I am not an academic and all my education in genres and so forth are mostly self-education…I certainly have learned more by reading on my own than I ever did in any class. I also realize that fear was part of the anxiety I no longer feel, which is another lovely discovery I’ve made since my better living through pharmaceuticals move several years ago.

As I mentioned earlier, college football was a bit crazy yesterday. The renewal of the Tiger Bowl was disappointing. I hate rooting against Auburn, but I do always appreciate it when it’s a great game–and there have been some absolutely amazing games in the series…but LSU was up 31-10 half-time, and the final score ws 38-17. Sure, I’m glad LSU won, but…Auburn was flat after their huge win over Georgia last weekend. I don’t know that LSU was that much better than Auburn, but it looked like LSU played well…but that’s just the way things are in college football, and the SEC in particular, these days. South Carolina upset Tennessee in a thriller; UCF beat BYU in a thriller a week after BYU upset Notre Dame; Alabama looked like they were in trouble with Texas A&M before putting them away; and the capper on the night was Texas’ upset over Mississippi (thanks for hooking them, Horns!).

I also finished my newsletter about Peter Straub’s Shadowland, which I enjoyed very much (You can click here to read it!). Peter Straub is just one of those writers, you know? Everything is good. I remember his Blue Rose trilogy, but I don’t remember much about it other than I didn’t really understand it? I should definitely go back and reread those–Koko, Mystery and there’s one other. I have so much rereading to do!

I’ve ordered some groceries to be delivered, and I am going to go read more of Mazywood once I post this; I have some more newsletters to work on as well as some editing and writing. I also have some chores to try to get around to…so I should probably head into the spice mines and finish this up, no? I’ll be back tomorrow morning as I return to work for a new week…so I will see you again then, and thanks for stopping by!

Statues of the Egyptian lion-headed goddess Sekhmet

Let’s Go

I like the nightlife baby!

Sorry, had a The Cars moment. Their music, by the way, still holds up.

So it’s Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment, LSU is playing Auburn at eleven, and most likely will have some things delivered. I’ll probably do chores while the games play; after that I’ll do stuff while switching between Texas A&M-Alabama and Tennessee-South Carolina. This evening, I’ll hate Mississippi even more for making me root for Texas again this season. (Don’t worry, friends who are UT fans, with all the SEC weirdness going on these days I will definitely be rooting for the Longhorns again, more than once, before the season ends. Realignment has changed things for sure; more on that at another time–I know most of y’all couldn’t give less of a fuck about college football, and I appreciate your not minding and bearing with me on it.) I feel good and rested this morning, and once this is posted, I’ll move to my easy chair where I’ll read before the games. I also want to get some of my newsletters worked on, another one sent out, and I definitely want to finish Mazywood, which is superb. I also need to do some research, work on a short story or two, and edit the book so I can move on to writing the next chapter. Bouchercon is going on right now, but I have no FOMO–I’m getting used to not attending things, and I really don’t miss it. Don’t get me wrong, most of my conference experiences in the crime fiction world have been pleasant, at least for the last twelve years or so, at any rate.

Yesterday was a good, if weird, day. I was a bit off yesterday for some reason I can’t quite understand; I took the wrong exit off the interstate for Costco, for one, and construction on the way back meant a detour to the Earhart which…actually wasn’t a bad way to come home from Costco. We spent over four hundred dollars, but didn’t seem to get all that much, either. I forgot to turn the dishwasher on before bed. I forgot about finishing the bed linens , so wasn’t able to go to bed until that was all done–can’t go to bed without sheets on it, can I? We finished The Diplomat last night, which is excellent, and then AHS:13, which is a hot mess but kind of fun; I actually enjoyed last night’s episode–about Madison’s falling in love with Satan’s son–but none of it makes any real sense; it’s like they threw in everything including the kitchen sink. We also watched this week’s Traitors (spoiler: they murdered one of the hot boys, so no more shower shots of him lathering his glistening wet muscles), which was very fun. I did run my errands yesterday morning, so I don’t have any to do today–I have to order things to be delivered, but that’s not a big deal–and I’ll probably run one tomorrow morning, which is fine.

I am loving this chillier weather; it was nice not getting drenched with sweat and overheating yesterday on the Costco trip, which is probably why I was finding it so exhausting to go. I love that I am feeling better and better with every passing day; sixty-five isn’t that bad. I thought how bad i felt was going to be the new normal (“you’re just getting older”–fuck you, quack doctor, if it were up to you I’d be dead now, you miserable homophobic prick), but now that I am healthier and recovering more all the time, this sixties thing isn’t so terrible. I like the lack of fucks I have now, and I am very glad that treating my anxiety has released me from the horrors of everyone has to like me I can’t have anyone dislike me and now? I couldn’t care less if people like me or not. I have very dear friends that I cherish, and I know a lot of people whose company I enjoy being in–but my default is always going to be solitude (Paul doesn’t count) and while I do marvel at how different my life could have been had I gotten it treated before, I don’t want any do-overs or anything. It is amazing how much my anxiety drove me to bad behavior on occasion, but at least now I understand it. Doesn’t excuse me behaving in a manner of which I am not proud, but it’s nice to know why. That dichotomy of not caring whether I am “popular” while having deep-rooted anxiety about not being liked created some intense cognitive dissonance–and I am hoping that isn’t going to be an issue anymore.

And on that note, I am going to get some cereal and another cup of coffee and head into ye olde Mines d’Spice. Have a happy Saturday, and above all else, GEAUX TIGERS!

Candy-O

And work-at-home Friday has rolled around again, somehow. I slept later this morning, and do feel a bit wrung-out, but not bad; I suspect my morning shower will take care of that completely. I slept very well–I am loving this cooler weather; I even wore long sleeves last night to dinner at Le Petite Grocery (which was superb on every level; the food and the conversation with my friend, whom I adore). I am in a pretty good mood this morning, and I also don’t have any meetings this morning, either.I have some paperwork to work on, and we’re going to Costco later. I also have some errands to run, which I may do this morning to get out of the way. LSU plays at eleven tomorrow, so I won’t have a lot of time to do much tomorrow morning…I’ll figure it all out later; right now I just want to swill coffee and finish this.

The apartment is also a mess, and I have to do the bed linens and the dishes (again), and it would be nice to get my inbox emptied today. But we’ll see how the day goes. I also have to finish watching this week’s Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, which I had started after work yesterday but had to turn off to go have dinner. The coffee is starting to clear my cobwebs, which is always a most excellent thing. I need to write, and I need to make a to-do list for this weekend so I don’t get off track and/or get easily distracted by a Youtube wormhole or something…which is ridiculously easy to do. Thanks, ADHD!

Apparently three escorts have come public with allegations that Lindsay Graham was a client, and I am not exactly sure why this is news? It would have been news had it broken while he was alive and actively doing damage not only to the queer community but to the country overall as well. He’s dead now, and being gay isn’t a crime…I am also unsure if it’s a crime to pay for sex. I know it’s a crime to get paid for sex, which is horribly wrong; the sex worker wouldn’t be doing sex work if not for the people willing to pay them. (I also don’t believe sex work, regardless of who’s the client and who’s the worker, should be a crime; more of that Puritan ethos in our society, and it’s about the patriarchy, as so many things are. The presumption is that only men will pay for sex and only from women; so of course the man is the victim and the woman the criminal.) Graham was dogged by these rumors his entire life, and I am not a proponent of bullying someone for being gay because some people think he might be gay. He clearly hated himself, and I cannot imagine how hellish his life must have been. If he hadn’t worked so hard against us, I might even be capable of some empathy for his fucked-up psyche. But money and power and acceptance by his peers was more important, and I am glad I chose not to live miserably. If anything, Graham is just another victim of homophobia in the end, even if it was entirely self-inflicted.

And seriously, who the fuck cares at this point? I also remain grateful that I didn’t end up like him, which was always a possibility until I turned thirty.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Enjoy your Friday, Constant Reader and I’ll be back in the morning before the game. Till then!

Shoo Be Doo

Thursday and my last day in the office for the week. Tonight I am having dinner with a friend at Le Petit Grocery uptown, which is a marvelous place to eat, and how much do I love having a lovely meal with a good friend? I love it a lot, thank you for asking. I’m not completely agoraphobic, but I do prefer being home to being most places. Dad admitted when I was in Kentucky that he doesn’t have groceries delivered because it gets him out of the house…and I had to admit that not leaving the house ever sounds pretty amazing to me, which is probably not a good thing. I am solitary by nature (my lifelong dream has always been to live alone–Paul is probably the only person I could live with, and I do miss him when he’s gone, so that’s something, right?), and really, I never minded not being popular and I didn’t really miss it, either, other than having a sense that I was supposed to want those things. I would have been fine had I not been bullied, you know? That was what made school miserable for me–so why would I ever want to be around people in general? You can never go wrong never completely trusting straight people, harsh as that sounds, because they’ll almost always disappoint you1–and I’m not that trusting of gay white males, either. I have also found that standing with, and listening to (most) Black women will never steer you wrong2.

I also sent out a newsletter yesterday, about Riley Sager’s delightful The Only One Left, and you can click on the title there to read it, if you so desire. It’s really not horror–it’s a thriller, first and foremost–but as a Gothic, I feel like it can be considered “light horror,” at least. There are so many novels that straddle the line between crime and horror, and Gothic suspense definitely can go either way; Victoria Holt’s ghost monk in Kirkland Revels was absolutely terrifying and scary. I love that Gothic mood of tightly wound tension kept in check but keeps building until it explodes.

I don’t feel tired this morning, and I got out of bed at six promptly, having been already awake since five thirty. I was awake when Sparky jumped into the bed this morning, curling up at my feet to wait for the alarm. My joints don’t ache and my legs don’t feel tired, which is a big win, as it not being mentally tired. I clearly needed the time off, didn’t I? Tomorrow I have work at home chores to do, and some errands to run, but it should be a good day. I found another anthology I want to write a story for, and when talking about it with a friend3, he gave me an absolutely brilliant concept for the story, which I am kind of excited about writing, and now I have to come up with a working title, at the very least. I may even make it a Scotty Bradley story, if I can make it work that way. My first ever Scotty short story! I wrote a Chanse short story for the collection I did a few (probably more; I have no concept of times past) years ago, but no Scotty, ever. Maybe now that’s he’s older and not a bar slut anymore? I do want to get a lot of writing done this weekend, wish me luck. I started working on another short story for another anthology–well, finishing one that’s been moldering in the files for years, but fits a call I saw.

The Tiger Bowl (LSU-Auburn) is this weekend, and it’s always a mixed bag for me. I hate for either team to lose, so inevitably I just hope for a good game. Conference realignment killed the rivalry, since they now no longer play every year, which makes football season a little easier for me, but Auburn has rotated onto LSU’s schedule, and this year the game is at 11 in the morning and is at Jordan-Hare. I suspect when the time for the game to air was decided, no one dreamed both teams would be ranked and have the same record–or that Auburn would pull off the big upset at Georgia last weekend. I do like it–although it feels weird–when LSU is finished playing by three, because the rest of the games don’t really require watching; I usually watch games until the LSU game is over, and whatever is on after that isn’t as important to me to watch. I usually do–for example, was really glad to have watched BYU-Notre Dame last week4. I probably should check the TV schedule; I know Mississippi is at Texas (and damn them for making me root for Texas again), and I think both Missouri and Kentucky have a tough row to hoe. (Correction: Kentucky plays Vanderbilt, and Missouri has a bye.) I’ll probably have the Alabama-A&M game on while I do other things.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a marvelous Thursday, and I will check in with you again tomorrow morning on Work-at-Home Friday. See you then!

This is the ad for Peachy Clean, a gummy that helps you clean out before being penetrated. I am simply amazed at how small his waist is.
  1. I cherish my straight friends. I cherish all of my actual friends, to be honest. I always make it sound like I don’t have any, which isn’t true. But it’s also true that I am not very social, and getting less so all the time. ↩︎
  2. Then there’s the Candace Owens types. We don’t talk about them. ↩︎
  3. See? I do have friends. ↩︎
  4. My family can’t be the only ones who watch Notre Dame games hoping to see them lose, can we? ↩︎

Double Life

Here we are and Pay-the-Bills Wednesday has somehow rolled back around again. How is that even possible? Madness, am I right? I’m getting more tired the deeper into the week we get, but I’m sleeping well and deeply, so hopefully I can make it to work-at-home Friday safely and easily. I’m also enjoying this colder (for us) weather. Fall and spring are my favorite, albeit the briefest, seasons in New Orleans. I really don’t mind the winter that much, either, here. I just don’t like snow, ice and frigid wind that cuts right to the bone. But it’s nice not sweating to death in the car before the a/c starts blowing cold, or from just walking a bag of garbage to the bins through hot soupy air.

Yesterday wasn’t bad. I got things done at the office, then came home to do some chores and write something due tonight at the latest, and there are definitely some emails I need to get to today. I am going to head uptown to get the mail after work and make some groceries–nothing major, but we need a few things–and I did get caught up on my Real Housewives shows once I was home from the office last night. I wasn’t terribly tired when I got home, and Sparky needed his bonding time once I walked in the door. When Paul got home, we watched another episode of The Diplomat, which may be my favorite current show–it’s very smart and the cast is exceptional, and Keri Russell, Alison Janney, and Jodie Whittaker are killing it.

This entire Jalen Hurts situation is so insane to me; how was that medical advice possibly considered legitimate and not insane by anyone with a brain? Has everyone forgotten that the same thing almost killed Serena Williams twice? I don’t really follow the NFL, but I remember Jalen Hurts from his years in college football. Sure, I hated it when LSU had to play him, but that was because he was so good, and he seemed like someone not driven by ego, evidenced by his not leaving Alabama after being benched until his final year of eligibility, when he transferred to Oklahoma–and Alabama’s fans were cool with it, which is unheard of for that fan base. So, clearly a good guy. He’s also ridiculously good looking, and I love that his entire team is Black women. I suspect the lawsuit from this horrific medical incompetence could potentially bankrupt the Eagles–and it should. New Orleans would have never in a million years pulled this kind of shit on Drew Brees back in the day.

But then again, Drew is a white man, just saying.

I do feel pretty good this morning, honestly. I should be able to get my next newsletter out either today or tomorrow, and should have no problem getting another out over the weekend. Doing my Halloween Horror Month and writing newsletters about horror media that I am visiting (or revisiting) makes them much easier to produce, but don’t worry–we’ll be back to Greg’s Observations again soon enough. I also know I can’t be the only one who is ready for this election cycle to be fucking over. The recent GOP smear ads have been particularly disgusting–the one about Amy Acton in Ohio is completely disqualifying for Vivek Ramaswamy, whom calling a bottom-feeder is a compliment. The ones in Texas–which we sometimes get to see, hurray–are especially egregious and evil. How people can view this horrific lies and vote for the people putting them out is beyond me–but then, the last ten years have been an eye-opening experience, and sorry not sorry; that genie isn’t going back into the bottle. Y’all showed the world who you really are, and no amount of tears and FAFO is ever going to make me change my mind about what pieces of shit you are.

The “people going no contact with MAGA” has definitely become a broader, bigger issue, and it’s getting coverage…but always from the perspective of the people being cut off, and the fact they are mystified that this happened to them tells me everything I need to know about what kind of people they are. I read one piece yesterday from a mother whose son disinvited her and her husband from his wedding, and doesn’t really speak to them anymore because…well, she just doesn’t know why, and how could her son do this to her? The entire piece was the greatest example of why her son wants nothing to do with her anymore that I could possibly think up; and did she really think writing and publishing an article about how cruel her son is being to her for no reason? Just her publishing the piece would ensure she would never see me or my children again, which shows she’s probably done and said some pretty horrific things because she’s his mother, damn it, and he is SUPPOSED to love her no matter what.

The fact that she isn’t leading with “I wish he would tell me what led to this so I could make it right”? I am #teamson all the way. This sort of thing doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

Maybe some self-reflection, ma’am?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, and I shall return in the morning!

This would make a terrific book cover image! I love how spooky the bayous in the wetlands can look. Robert Miller does excellent nature photography of Louisiana. Support his work at https://www.rmpgallery.com/