Category: college football

I’ve Been In Love Before

And just like that, it’s Friday again in New Orleans, with a weekend dawning full of promise and potential. How I choose to squander that promise and potential remains to be seen, quite frankly.

But I am sure I will earn another Olympic gold in procrastination and justification. I am getting rather good at it.

So last night we watched the season finale of American Horror Story: 1984. Sigh. Another season of  great potential, an interesting and diverse cast, and a terrific idea….yet the entire season left me feeling meh. Paul and I laughed our way through the finale, which, for a “horror story” is perhaps not the best intended reaction? I guess making an homage to slasher films from the 1980’s, including a summer camp, and then making it completely camp wasn’t what I was expecting, and frankly, when it comes to clever campy homages Scream set a bar so damned high that its sequels couldn’t even clear–but they came close. For a brief moment, as I watched, I did think oh, this is clever–he’s doing a pastiche of an entire series of slasher movies, like following the arc of the Friday the 13th’s first few films or so…but no, I wasn’t right. But that would be a much more clever idea than what we were given, frankly.

I’ve always said that the line between the horror and crime genres–be it film, novels, short stories, or television–is a very thin one that gets crossed rather frequently. The Silence of the Lambs is considered a horror film (I’ve not read the book; it’s in my TBR pile along with Red Dragon, and I will eventually get to them both), but it’s also very much a procedural: Clarice Starling, federal agent, is part of the team trying to catch a brutal serial killer, Buffalo Bill. Filming it as a horror film made it suspenseful and terrifying; much more so than had it been filmed as a straight-up procedural (which is why I am very curious about the novels). I’ve always wanted to do a straight-up novel about a mass, or spree, killing–which is what slasher movies really are at heart–that begins in the aftermath of a night like Halloween, when the police are called to the scene of a mass killing with brutalized, butchered bodies everywhere–or when the state police arrive at the camp at Crystal Lake; the first quarter/third of the book is the discovery of the bodies and the lead detective trying to place together the time-line of the murders. That’s as far as I’ve ever gotten with the idea, honestly; if I can ever figure out where to go from there, I’ll probably write it (although it occurs to me that what would be rather clever would be to alternate between the night before, when it’s happened, and the following morning as the detective puts the time line together….hmmmm *makes note*).

I also have an idea about a novel set in a ghost town in the California mountains–I’ve had this idea for quite some time, going back to the 1980’s (almost all of my California ideas were born in the 1980’s, when I lived there), and my mind keeps coming back to it from time to time. I think the idea was born from reading Stephen King’s short story “The Raft”, and then seeing it on film in Creepshow 2 (Paul Satterfield in that skimpy yellow speedo made quite an impression on me; it even occurs to me now that may have subliminally had a connection to my short story “Man in a Speedo”); the basic concept was the same–five or six college students decide to spend a weekend camping in a ghost town, getting drunk and high and having sex–only to have it all go South in the most terrifying way. I also realize that the “group of young people come to a remote location and all get killed off gradually” is probably the more hoary of the horror tropes; in order to do something like that one has to not only do it exceptionally well,  but say something new. I wanted to call it Sunburst, because that would be the name of the remote ghost town; a town that sprung up around a gold mine that eventually petered out and the town died with it. I also wanted it to be set in the mountains because–well, because the mountains in California are so beautiful–I wanted to set it on a mountain top that had a lovely view across a valley or canyon to Yosemite National Park.

This is why I never get anything done, really–I have so many ideas, and get new ones all the time, and so things get pushed to the side and forgotten until something reminds me of the original idea. I also like to think that I will eventually come back around to the idea and write it…it has happened before, of course–Sara, Sorceress, Sleeping Angel, Dark Tide all come to mind–and so it’s not so hard to believe those ideas’ time will eventually come. Hell, even Bury Me in Shadows was originally conceived of in the 1980’s, as a short story I wrote called “Ruins”–and the idea was always there in the back of my mind; which is partly why I finally decided to write the damned thing.

Finishing it, on the other hand, seems to be an enormous problem thus far. I am hoping to break this lengthy non-writing streak–well, I’ve been writing a bit here and there, just not producing on a daily basis the amount I not only should be but can do as a general rule–this weekend. The LSU game is Saturday night, and while yes, Auburn-Georgia is in the afternoon, I’m not so sure I care that much about watching it. Background noise, maybe, and if it’s a Georgia rout I can always turn it off….and I’m not so sure when the Saints game is on Sunday. I am also falling into the trap of thinking oh I have a week off for Thanksgiving come up and I can finish it then. No, no, NO. I should finish it before then, so I can spend that week polishing it and making it pretty before sending it off on December 1.

I seriously don’t know what to do, to be perfectly honest. I just know I need to be writing more than I am–and if not the book, then a short story or something. AUGH.

And since I don’t have to go in until later, I might as well do some this morning.

Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader.

augRussian-Hotties6

Funkytown

And we’ve made it to Wednesday. It’s also Pay-the-Bills Day, and I have errands to run this morning before I head into the office. I hate Pay-the-Bills Day, seriously; it’s the worst part of being an adult, I think. I’m self-absorbed enough to think my paycheck should be mine to do with as I please, rather than simply utilized to pay the bills. Heavy heaving sigh. But I do get an enormous sense of satisfaction–primarily because of completion–from paying the bills. It’s lovely to check them off as they are paid, make a new list of how much is owed, etc etc etc. It’s a little shocking how much money I actually do owe–particularly since I hate nothing more than I do owing money–but it’s also nice to see the numbers go down–if not as quickly as I would like them to.

It’s cold in the Lost Apartment and New Orleans this morning; so much so that I’ve got a hat on my head and the space heater going. I slept beautifully again last night–it’s so lovely to be getting used to sleeping well consistently and nightly–and it’s amazing to feel rested every day, rather than tired and cranky. It really does make a difference, a significant one, and I’m glad to be feeling more myself these days. I still haven’t gotten any writing done this week yet–it really is disgraceful, frankly–but we were busy at work yesterday, and my actual day job does, sometimes, drain me emotionally. It did yesterday, but I also provided good counseling services to people who desperately needed a friendly, non-judgmental person to listen, advise, and console. It is a rewarding job–which is why I have it and why I have lasted so long there. I do love helping my clients.

I also had gotten my email inbox under some sort of control yesterday, but I woke up to a ridiculous amount in there again this morning. It may not all need to be answered, but it all needs to be read. Sigh–that’ll teach me to  keep being a volunteer.

Today is a half-day at the office as well as being a cold day in New Orleans. Paul will be home later tonight; hopefully we can get caught up on Catherine the Great and American Horror Story: 1984 also airs its season finale this evening. I hope to get the writing done before Paul gets home; I really need to sink my teeth back into the manuscript. It also occurred to me last night that part of the reason the manuscript doesn’t feel quite right is that I may not have the best grasp of my character, and so today, between clients, I am going to start constructing his bio and figuring out who he is, so I can make him seem real. I was trying to make it more of a distant first person point of view, which can be quite effective (see everything written by Lori Roy), but it’s not working for me and so it needs to be overhauled, as does the Kansas book. But week after next is Thanksgiving, I will have the week off, and I am going to do some serious work that week–I know, I know, I always say that, and then it never happens–but I am going to focus on getting this shit together over the course of that week. I’d still like to have Bury Me in Shadows in better condition so I can get it turned in and be done with it once and for all.

And while I am yes, indeed, still walking in the clouds from the LSU win over Alabama this past weekend, I have to say I am a little surprised at how sportswriters and sportscasters have essentially buried the Alabama program and erected a headstone on the grave as a result of the loss. Um, they’re Alabama, and if you think Nick Saban is finished, think again. Alabama was beaten pretty badly by Clemson in last year’s championship game–this is certainly true–but no one wrote Alabama off as dead after that game, and I am not certain why the loss to LSU has had this effect on people. Maybe it was the twenty point deficit going into half-time? I mean, sure, it was the most points scored in the history of the series, it was the most points scored on a Nick Saban team since he went to Alabama, it’s the most points scored on them since a 2003 quadruple overtime loss to Tennessee, and all the rest of that. I guess maybe it’s the combination of last year’s Clemson loss and this year’s LSU loss? I don’t know, but it’s strange, and it’s certainly bulletin board material for the Tide for the rest of this year and for next season, to be sure. Don’t be surprised if the Tide come roaring back–you heard it here first. ANd LSU has to be ready for Ole Miss Saturday; they’d love nothing more than to spoil this amazing, magical season for the Tigers–kind of like we did to them in 2014.

I have to run some errands this morning before I go into the office, so I’d better start getting motivated to get out there into the cold–which I really don’t want to do, but have no choice. So, it’s off to the spice mines with me–have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and stay warm!

augRussian-Hotties4

To Be a Lover

LSU beat Alabama yesterday, 46-41.

I still can’t completely wrap my mind around it, but it was a great game–I was never relaxed, from the opening kick-off until I realized LSU could simply run out the clock and that the game was actually, in fact,  already over, if not officially–and both teams acquitted themselves well. LSU played exceptionally well; at half-time I said out loud in disbelief, “we’re ahead of Alabama 33-13 at half-time?”

In my wildest dreams of LSU beating Alabama again, I never dreamed it would go down the way it did yesterday afternoon. Like I said, I can’t wrap my mind around it.  But, as I say, to be the best you have to beat the best, and Alabama is the gold standard of college football, and has been since 2008. You just don’t get better than the Alabama program–historically or recently. Their recent dynasty has pulled them ahead of other gold standard programs–USC, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Texas, Michigan, Notre Dame–because you simply cannot argue with the success they’ve had. Every national champion since 2008 has had to beat Alabama to get there–or it was Alabama. Every national champion from the SEC since 2009 has been from the western division–and if you go back another two years, LSU won it in 2007 (Florida won in 2006 and 2008).

And it looks like, at long last, we might have another shot at it again this year.

GEAUX TIGERS!

Needless to say, I literally got nothing done after the game was over. I didn’t read anything, didn’t write anything, didn’t clean anything. I just kind of stayed in my easy chair, scrolling through social media while the Tennessee-Kentucky game played in the background, to see the reactions to the game and the videos of the team plane landing in Baton Rouge to an enormous crowd–which even lined the road cheering as the team busses took them back to campus from the airport. We all are, of course, huge fans of the underdog, and what is this year’s LSU team is not a team of underdogs? No one wanted running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire; too small to play in the SEC, they said. He was phenomenal last night–that final first down that iced the game once and for all was an incredible display of running as he dragged almost the entire Alabama defense the entire ten yards to put the game away once and for all. The transfer quarterback who didn’t get the starting job at Ohio State; now almost has a lock on the Heisman Trophy and has already broken most, if not all, of the quarterback records at LSU.

And of course, Coach O–the interim coach who finally got the job after two bigger names turned it down; the coach LSU “settled” for, who went on to lose to Troy in his first full season as head coach. Remember that? It was just two years ago, and everyone wrote Coach O for dead that season. Even this year, Coach O was “on the hot seat”, according to every sports journalistic out there–the Cajun home-state coach with the gravelly voice; who wages a battle at every press conference with the closed-captioning. And yet, here LSU sits, 9-0, ranked Number One, having just gotten the Alabama monkey off its back for the first time since the 2011 season and suddenly is everyone’s favorite for the college football play-offs.

After the Texas game, when LSU won in Austin, I said to Paul, “how cool would it be for LSU and Ohio State–Joe’s two teams–to meet for the national championship, and how fitting would it be to write, as Joe’s final act as a college football player, to beat the team that wouldn’t start him to win the national title?”

It seemed far-fetched at the time, but now? It’s definitely possible.

LSU has to keep its head in the game though–there are three games left in the conference (Ole Miss, Arkansas, Texas A&M), and then the conference title game–most likely against Georgia; even if Georgia loses to Auburn they’ll win the East–and should Georgia win out, and LSU win that game…it will be the fifth time they’ve beaten a Top Ten ranked team this season.

Sorry if you’re not a football fan, but I am aglow still this morning, and that glow will probably last for me a little while…but the Saints are playing the hated Falcons today at noon, so I’ve got to get ready for that game, too.

GEAUX TIGERS!

If you could have turned the joy in Louisiana last night into pure energy, we could have powered the entire country last night.

Thank you, and bless you, boys.

JEAUX BURREAUX FOR THE HEISMAN!!!!!!

12234872_970378833023137_8803119542129679196_n

Break Out

I am trying not to get too stressed out about the LSU-Alabama game today; it is what it is, after all, and my getting worked up or stressed out about it isn’t going to change anything about the game. I am constantly amazed at how worked up I can get over football games; it really accomplishes nothing and whether LSU wins or loses has no real impact on my day-to-day life; I try, from time to time, to understand why I get so emotionally invested in being a football fan; there’s perhaps a decent essay in there somewhere for my collection of essays that I hope to pull together someday. I know that the essay about my fandom of LSU–and Southeastern Conference football in general–will be called “It’s Saturday Night in Death Valley,” and I’ve already sketched out some ideas for it. The phenomenon of games in the stadium–that wild crowd psychology thing–is also fascinating to me; I still get chills when I fondly remember how amazingly fun the LSU-Florida game was a few weeks ago in Tiger Stadium.

I still get chills thinking about it.

But to be the best, you have to beat Alabama–which is the truth of college football since around 2008. You have to, even if you don’t like them, admire what Alabama has done under the guidance of Nick Saban in the last past twelve seasons. Their worst season was a three-loss season in 2010; I don’t think they’ve lost more than one game in a season since then; but I could be wrong. Only LSU and Ole Miss have beaten Alabama in consecutive years under Nick Saban; and after those two back-to-back wins, LSU has lost to Alabama eight straight times. Obviously, I am rooting for LSU to win, and will be disappointed should they lose; but there have been seasons before (last year, 2015, 2012) when it looked like we had a shot at taking them down only to lose.

I am being interviewed for a radio show later this morning; I am dropping Paul off for an appointment afterward and then going to pick up the mail. In the meantime I am going to try to get the kitchen cleaned up and maybe do some writing; at least get the files open. I love to write, but it’s also amazing to me how when I get out of the habit of doing it every day how easy it is to keep not writing, even though I enjoy writing and always feel an enormous sense of accomplishment and pride when I’ve finished writing for the day. I also want to finish reading The Ferguson Affair this weekend, which shouldn’t be too terribly difficult; Ross Macdonald is always a quick, easy read, and I am curious to see how this case–which is not an Archer–turns out. One of the reasons I enjoy reading Ross Macdonald is because he is such a terrific writer, one, and two, because the cases are always so intriguing and I am never really sure where they are going. They are also impressive time capsules for the period. After I finish the Macdonald, I think I’m going to give Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys  a whirl; it seems to be based on the same case/incident that Lory Roy’s brilliant The Disappearing was built around, and it’s also a case that has interested me enough to consider writing about it.

We’re almost finished with season two of Netflix’ It’s the End of the Fucking World, which is quite as interesting, strange, and thought-provoking as the first season. I had wondered how they were going to do a second season but I never in my wildest dreams would have imagined the insanity that this second season would fully embrace. I have to  hand it to the show. Very creative.

I can hardly wait for the next episode of Watchmen, either.

All right, I suppose I’d best get back to work this morning. I have limited time–since I have the interview this morning and then errands to run from there before the game–so I had best make use of the time wisely, rather than just sitting here and scrolling through social media.

Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and GEAUX TIGERS.

12279035_10208132475294413_5622605086685341869_n

Mandolin Rain

Thursday, aka Friday Eve, has arrived and I have a purring kitty interfering with my computer usage this morning before I go to the office. Which is fine; he usually doesn’t want to sit in my lap when I’m at the computer and he seems to be okay with that this morning, which is lovely.

It’s been a week for the publishing world, let me tell you, Constant Reader. I am not going to talk about any of that here; I have another blog entry I am working on, where I talk about reading The Hunter by Richard Stark, which correlates with the crazy publishing week, so it’s best left to there.

Last night we watched perhaps the best episode of Castle Rock that has aired, either season, to date; as we learned about Annie Wilkes’ childhood and her relationship with her parents–and the two actors who played her mother and father were astonishingly good. It was riveting television, and I was truly sorry to see the episode end. It also seriously paid homage to Misery, and a lot of the things we are familiar with Annie saying were all learned from her parents. I know Castle Rock is theoretically set in an alternate universe to King’s novels, which enables them to use his characters, settings, and stories to create new versions–which is genius, really–and doing an entire season with Annie Wilkes as a younger woman was incredibly smart. Lizzy Kaplan is giving an Emmy worthy performance as young Annie, and watching this is making me want to reread Misery, which I still consider one of the best books of the last century.

Ironically, I wasn’t able to finish this entry yesterday; it’s the first blog day I’ve missed in quite a while. There’s been a lot of drama in two writing communities I belong to this week, and I’ve not been able to look away from either–one in particular I described to Paul as a slow-motion train wreck, and just when you think the last car has finally come off the tracks, here comes another train on the same line. Today, however, I am determined to ignore the train wreck as much as possible because I have too much to get done. I’ve not even been able to catch up on my emails, and the inbox just keeps filling up every damned day. So, today I am going to finish paying the bills, clean out my inbox, and do some goddamned writing. I’ll never finish this fucking book if I don’t focus, and I have some short stories that need to be reworked and revised and so forth as well.

Last night we watched the second-to-last episode of American Horror Story: 1984, and have just about decided that the only way one can watch a season of anything produced by Ryan Murphy is to simply not think about it, because once you start thinking about it you see all the holes in the plot and all the contrived behavior that makes no sense in terms of character–because the characters are only there to service the plot, which is the penultimate story-telling sin. But I can’t stop myself from watching–and somewhat enjoying–these shows. Some of the kids at work were streaming the Hotel season, which I’d stopped watching as it aired and never finished; and it seemed a bit more cohesive in a binge. I may go back and rewatch it, just to see if it works better as a binge show where you don’t have time to think about these things.

It certainly worked with The Politician.

I also want to finish reading The Ferguson Affair, which is making me think about some other issues with old works being read through the present-day lens (which also occurred with me reading The Hunter and, a few months back,  I the Jury)–and the age-old question of separating the artist from the art (not in Macdonald’s case; as far as I know he was never problematic, but the attitudes of the time, translated into fiction, are what I am talking about in this case–in particular, women and minorities and how they are represented on the pages of the book).

I am also slowly but surely making my way through Richard Campanella’s Bourbon Street, and enjoying the trip immensely. New Orleans history–dark and bloody as it is–is endlessly fascinating, and I am always finding inspiration for more stories and books the more of it I read.

I’m not really sure how much I am going to get done this weekend–the emotional drains of the LSU-Alabama game on Saturday, followed by the Saints-Falcons game on Sunday–is probably going to be prohibitive of doing any writing–unless I do it in the mornings–all weekend. So, mostly reading will be on the agenda this weekend, methinks.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. I don’t have to head into the office until around noonish, so I have this morning free to write and answer emails and put away dishes and…sigh. I’m getting tired just thinking about it, so I better just do it.

Til tomorrow, Constant Reader.

12278783_974033955990958_8280930644329109887_n

Someday

Wednesday morning, although my internal calendar is all messed up from not working on Monday. I kept thinking yesterday was Monday all day–and it was most irritating. But the good news is I made it through an entire twelve hour shift without getting tired (I did get a bit sleepy toward the end, though) and I had yet another lovely night of sleep last night, which was marvelous.

Sleep is so underrated, really. I’ve really come to cherish it as I approach sixty.

Last night we watched the ice dance competition from Grand Prix France, which occurred over the last weeked–we also are most delighted that the Olympic Channel airs a lot of figure skating competitions; we are big fans and always have been, and in recent years the lack of air time for figure skating competitions has made it a lot harder to follow and remain a fan. I think one of the upcoming US Nationals is actually in Nashville, which is drive-able, and therefore do-able (I am really getting to the point where I will avoid flying and airports as much as I possibly can). We then discovered the Netflix has dropped season two of It’s the End of the Fucking World, and very much kudos to the showrunners and writers for taking the show in a completely unforeseen direction in episode one. Tonight will drop new episodes of Castle Rock and American Horror Story: 1984, so our television needs for this evening are already met; but it’s nice to know Fucking World is there when we need something to watch.

I’ve also managed to almost get completely caught up on emails; alas, there was a thing yesterday on a board of directors on which I serve, which took up a lot of time yesterday in reading all the emails, thinking about the situation, and figuring out what we needed to do–if anything–so that kind of threw me off getting through the rest of my emails as well as getting anything written yesterday. I did manage to get the editorial corrections to my story “The Dreadful Scott Decision” finished and turned in, and I also got the cover art and an eye on the other contributors–which was quite thrilling; there are some folks in there I am very excited to be sharing a table of contents with–more on that later, but I really love the cover and I really love the entire concept of the anthology, The Faking of the President, and I love even more the fact that I was asked to write for it and was included.

The Dark Yonder anthology, to which I contributed my story “Moist Money” (and how much do I love that I wrote a story called “Moist Money”? And thanks again to the wonderful Bill Loefhelm for telling me I needed to use that as a title) is also going to be available at some time this month; I think the official release date is Black Friday? It’s actually been, all things considered, a pretty good year for me and short stories. I have another one or two out there for submission. And as I said, over the course of this past weekend I finally figured out how to fix two stories that have gone through a ridiculous amount of drafts and rejections: “Death and the Handmaidens” and “The Problem with Autofill.” In both instances I was too stubborn to see the necessary changes that would make the stories work, because those changes were pretty intensive; including a title change for “The Problem with Autofill”–which is still a great title and can still be used for another story, but the one I wrote doesn’t fit that title and trying to force it to fit that title is why the story isn’t working.

One of the biggest problems I face as a writer is my own, innate stubbornness. I CAN make this work is always my go-to, and I cling to that even when it’s patently obvious to me that I cannot make it work. If I had all that time back…but there it is. It may take me in some cases years to get to that point with something I am working on, but I do eventually get there.

I also worked a bit on Bury Me in Shadows before I went to bed last night. It’s coming along more slowly than I would like–and I suspect I am going to have to go back over the first twelve chapters again because I didn’t include everything on this go round that I needed to include, which is fine. I didn’t finish it in October like I wanted to because I got sick towards the end, but I am choosing that as a sign that it didn’t need to be finished by the end of October and perhaps shooting for the end of November is the way to go. That means I can’t work on the Kansas book again until December, but I do think with focus and drive I can finish that one in a month, which frees me up to move onto Chlorine in January. My goal is to get a good first draft written in a month, put it aside to breathe and settle, and then write that next Chanse book I’ve been thinking about for the last few months.

And on that note, it’s back to the spice mines with me this morning before work. I have a half-day today, and have some errands to run this morning before heading into the office, which is fine. I’m also doing a better job of keeping up with the chores, so hopefully this weekend, around the LSU and Saints games, I’ll be able to do some touching up. Have a terrific day Constant Reader!

12289573_10206441191162287_4418035757451893721_n

La Isla Bonita

Friday,  still on vacation, and it’s forty-seven degrees outside. It’s colder inside the Lost Apartment–New Orleans homes are built to be colder inside than outside, it’s a summer thing–and I am ensconced at my desk in sweats and a wool cap on my cold bald head. My fingers are a bit cold, but my coffee is hot and delicious. My doctor’s appointment went well, and last night I had the best night’s sleep I’ve had in I don’t know how long–all I know is I slept for more then ten hours, didn’t wake up once, and feel very rested and relaxed this morning. I actually feel better than I have in weeks.

Weeks.

Today is the day I would be doing my panels at Bouchercon; I shall have to keep busy to distract myself. Yesterday, between the errands and the power outage, was highly annoying. By the time I had finished my errands and the power was back on in the Lost Apartment, I was pretty much over it, to be honest. I buckled down and started a cleaning project–starting with the refrigerator, and then I worked my way through the kitchen cabinets and drawers. I did another load of dishes and two more loads of laundry, and finally retired to my easy chair around five thirty yesterday evening. I got caught up on watching Saturdays in the South, and while it was on, brainstormed ideas and thoughts for essays, short stories, and works in progress already. I am already thinking about writing an essay collection–or rather, compiling all the essays I’ve already written into a collection, and then writing some new ones–and as I was watching the final two episodes of this exceptional history of SEC football (I highly recommend it; I actually would like to see similar docuseries on every conference, to be honest; I love history, even sports history) I started thinking about in terms of Louisiana itself, not just New Orleans; which I’ve been doing a lot more of lately. After all, LSU fans aren’t just from New Orleans, and the special feeling you get on a Saturday night in Death Valley, like we experienced at the Florida game, is a Louisiana experience. New Orleans might hold itself at arms’ length from the rest of the state, but New Orleans wouldn’t be New Orleans without Louisiana, and likewise, Louisiana wouldn’t be Louisiana without New Orleans.

And as I said in Royal Street Reveillon, New Orleans is really an island, surround by water on every side–you cannot come into,  or leave, the city without having to cross a bridge at some point. The beautiful island, the beautiful crescent.

But as I said, this is the best I’ve felt in weeks. I feel like today I can actually get some writing done; I organized and filed yesterday so my desk area is neat and tidy; so is the kitchen, which means there’s no mess to distract or prohibit me from getting writing done today, which is very exciting.

I also have an insane amount of emails to answer. There were 159 unread emails in there this morning when I woke up the computer. AIEEEE! But oddly enough, I don’t feel either defeated or intimidated…which is  an indication that I’m feeling better, isn’t it?

But I do think I need to put on some tights under my sweatpants.

We also watched the first episode of Hulu’s second season of Castle Rock last night and Lizzy Kaplan is just killing it as a younger version of Kathy Bates’ Annie Wilkes in Misery. She has the voice, the mannerisms, everything nailed to perfection. I also like that they’ve made Jerusalem’s Lot and Castle Rock basically neighboring villages; ‘salem’s Lot remains one of my (if not the) favorite vampire novels, and one of my favorites of King’s canon. I’m also curious to see if this means the paranormal aspect of this season is going to be vampires. It’s also interesting that the Merrills from “The Body” are also in this; again, it’ll be interesting to see where this goes. I watched the entire first season, and while it was entertaining, it was also slightly flawed. I also don’t really remember much of the first season, outside of the terrific acting. That’s probably problematic; if you can’t remember what the show was about…how good could it have been, really?

There are three more episodes available to stream, so we should be caught up after this weekend; we’re also now a bit behind on Catherine the Great, and I also want to start watching Watchmen, in addition to the second season of Titans on DC Universe.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me–after I get those tights on.

Have a happy Friday, Constant Reader!

11880539_932538416807179_9201649211804062559_n

Don’t Disturb This Groove

And today is Thursday. Today’s highlight will be going to see my doctor and seeing what progress there’s been with this wretched illness, and perhaps a new prescription for something. Huzzah.

Yesterday was the worst I’ve felt since the day after the LSU-Florida game; I am still not certain there’s not a direct corollary between the great time at the game and the coming down with something immediately thereafter. I got very little done after all yesterday; shortly after making chicken noodle soup–which made me feel better for a little while–I became feverish and headache-y again so I retired to my easy chair. I tried to read but couldn’t really concentrate, so gave up on that and just streamed old episodes of Jeopardy for the rest of the day. I feel better this morning–I didn’t sleep that well last night but feel really rested this morning; yesterday I felt tired–and am going to try to get caught up on emails and so forth after I finish this, before heading off to see my doctor at eleven.

I was awakened several times throughout the night by thunder and the sound of the pouring rain–I do hope the streets didn’t flood; that would be a most unpleasant surprise if my car got water in it–and even now it’s still gray and yucky looking outside. I don’t mind going out into the yuck–I need to stop and got the mail, go to the bank, and make some groceries today as well–but it’s also going to be lovely to come back home and get under my blankets and finish reading my book. It’s weird that it’s Halloween today; it doesn’t feel like Halloween–but then again I’ve been primarily focused on just getting through the days ever since I started feeling poorly.

Bouchercon officially starts today, and I hate that I am not there with my friends. But being miserable about it isn’t going to make it better. It’s delightful seeing everyone posting on social media, and some friends texted me a photo of themselves all together, which was really sweet. I do have the most lovely friends. I’m a very lucky Gregalicious.

And not going this year will make next year in Sacramento even better.

Well, this is the point I reached this morning just after nine a.m. when the power went off. Ironically, as it turns out, despite last night’s massive storm our lines were fine, but a tree branch had come down on another set of lines, and they had to turn them all off in order to get the tree branches removed. They also decided to go ahead and have a tree service come out and cut down dangerous branches up and down Prytania Street–why this isn’t done on a more regular, preventative way is certainly beyond me, but what do I know? I’m not a billion dollar power company. I went to the doctor, picked up a prescription, and did my errands…and came home to power. Not sure when it came back on, to be honest–for all I know it could have literally come on just before I got home–but I am home and happy to have power. It’s also really damp, windy, and chilly outside.

And now I am wondering what to do with the rest of the day. I have a load of clothes refluffing in the dryer, another in the washer waiting its turn for the dryer, and a full dishwasher that needs to be unloaded. I think I’m going to go ahead and put everything away, and then go read.

Have a lovely Halloween, everyone.

11879102_883360238423315_2050997177623922593_o

Change of Heart

It’s now Tuesday, and bad news to be had all around, alas.

I won’t be attending Bouchercon this year. If you will recall, I’ve not been operating at 100% since I went to the LSU-Florida game. Turns out I am ill–nothing serious, nothing life threatening, nothing more than a damned inconvenience–and as such, am not allowed to travel. Yay. One of the few things I look forward to every year, missed due to illness.

I am NOT happy about this turn of events. But it is what it is, and now I have to figure out who all and what all I have to do to let people know so my moderating slots are covered. Paul, however, pointed out a potential silver lining, re: the Anthony Awards: “You never win when you’re actually there, so maybe this will increase your odds of winning?” Which is true–if you overlook the fact that I’ve also lost when I’ve not been in attendance at an awards presentation.

Ah, well. At least I’ll have the time off from work to try to keep shoveling down antibiotics and taking care of myself–I’m going to keep my vacation days; just not going anywhere. Heavy heaving sigh.

I slept well again last night, which is two nights in a row when I had to get up early where I pretty much slept all night long–I did wake up once or twice; the only time I distinctly remember being right before the alarm went off–and again, like yesterday morning, I feel very rested, despite the darkness outside my windows. Paul went to a show last night, so wasn’t home before I went to bed; I spent the evening after getting home from the office watching an ESPN college football history special about Notre Dame last night before retiring. I probably should have cleaned the kitchen or something, but I was tired, and hey–I have tomorrow off, so it can probably wait at least another day, right? If I continue waking up early–which I hope will become a thing again; I used to get up every morning like clockwork at seven am, thanks to Skittle–I can start using my mornings to be a lot more productive than I have been lately. Mornings before work used to always be my most productive time; I always worked all morning on my days off and into the early afternoon, usually calling it a day around three. Social media has disrupted that, of course; I need to learn to keep my browser closed while I am writing and maybe–maybe–keep up with social media when I need a break by looking at my phone. Glancing around even now, I am thinking that there’s definitely some filing that needs to be done, and maybe, around doctor’s appointments and the visit to the specialist this week, I can maybe even clean out my cabinets and do the windows and filing and who knows what else I can get done? Maybe even move some boxes to storage, and clean out the attic. There is neither an LSU game nor a Saints game this weekend, so outside of watching the Georgia-Florida game, there’s no need for me to even bother watching football games this weekend….which means more writing time and more cleaning time. I don’t think I’m going to finish Bury Me in Shadows before the end of the month; I did get another chapter finished last night, though, and maybe can get through another tonight. Tomorrow I’ll dive in headfirst and see how much I can get finished.

And maybe I’ll be able to finish reading Certain Dark Things.

I do have a lot of writing to get done, so maybe this unexpected ailment is for the best, the universe’s way of telling me hey dude you really need to get your shit together rather than going to Dallas and having fun and drinking too much for five days. This is the first Bouchercon I will miss since I started attending again in Albany back whenever that was; it was Albany, Raleigh, Long Beach, New Orleans, Toronto and St. Petersburg, so I guess that would make it 2013. YIKES, that feels like a gazillion years ago.

I started reading Richard Campanella’s Bourbon Street this week as my non-fiction read of the moment; the book is a history of the street–which, oddly, had never really been done before–against an overall backdrop of the city’s history, and am really enjoying it thus far. I mean, I’m still in the part where the city is being founded and built by the French in the early eighteenth century–and of course, from the very beginning the city was fraught with criminality; John Law’s Louisiana Company operated from a sense of fraud and eventually collapsed, but the city continued to grow and thrive along the river after the initial founding.

And on that note, it’s back to the spice mines with me.

12189939_969600999767587_4203808825150579257_n

Will You Still Love Me?

Sunday morning. LSU managed to remain undefeated yesterday, squeaking out a 23-20 nerve-wracking win over Auburn and looking like LSU of old. It was a very tense, stressful afternoon here in the Lost Apartment, believe you me. But they did pull out the win to move to 8-0; with Alabama on the horizon in two weeks in Tuscaloosa. They will most likely be ranked 1 and 2 at the time of the game; the winner takes the lead in the division, becomes the favorite to win the SEC, and make the playoffs. There’s some talk, already, that even if LSU loses to Alabama they might still make the playoffs; Oklahoma’s shocking loss to Kansas State opening that door still wider. There are a number of good one loss teams in the SEC already–Georgia and Florida are about to play next week in a battle of once-beatens to determine who will win the East division, and a shot to play the winner of LSU-Alabama in Atlanta in December.

Likewise, it also wouldn’t be the first time Alabama lost to LSU and got to play for the national title.

I was emotionally spent after the game, so I spent the rest of the evening finishing reading Robert Tallant’s Ready to Hang: Seven Famous New Orleans Murders. Tallant isn’t the best writer, and he’s also, as they say, a product of his time; but I found his retelling of famous New Orleans murders quite entertaining. The last three chapters (“Let the Poor Girl Sleep!”, “The Axman Had Wings”, and “Fit as a Fiddle and Ready to Hang”) were quite interesting, and I can see easily how to translate those real life true crimes into fiction, particularly the last one–about a handsome young man who wanted to be a singer and went around killing older men with money. The book was written and published in 1952 originally, and so the story of Kenneth Neu, as written by Tallant, skirted around what was patentedly obvious to me at any rate–he flirted with older men to see if they might be interested in his looks, and then killed and robbed them. (When he was tried eventually, he was only tried for the murder he committed in New Orleans; a previous crime in New Jersey definitely involved homosexual activity, and they didn’t want to try him for that one in case the jury sympathized with him killing an older gay man…so obviously, the prosecutors in Orleans Parish successfully kept any possibility of homosexuality out of his trial.) Neu is an interesting character to me; originally from Savannah, served in the military, and extremely charming and good-looking. Even throughout his trial he was cheerful, trying to charm people, even singing and dancing for the audience in the courtroom during breaks in the trial. He’s almost like something out of Patricia Highsmith; there’s definitely some Ripley in Neu. And obviously, he would make for a fascinating character in an old time New Orleans noir.

I’m also working on a short story–have been for some months now–called “A Little More Jazz for the Axeman,” which will go into my collection Monsters of New Orleans should I ever finish it; I’d also like to send it out for submission. It’s a Venus Casanova story, and while I got off to a relatively good start on it, it kind of stalled on me–primarily because I didn’t know the particulars of the true Axeman murders. I’d read some of it in Empire of Sin, but Tallant covered it a bit more thoroughly. I do need to come up with a timeline of the original Axeman murders, which should be relatively easy to do now, and see how I can work with that for my Venus short story.

I do intend to write today, Constant Reader, after two days of meaning to but never getting around to it. But the time has come, and I really must stop procrastinating. I don’t know what time the Saints game is today, but regardless, I have to sit here and at the very least finish off Chapter Twelve, whose rewrite has been in stasis now for over a week. I only have thirteen more chapters to go before the damned thing is finished–and while I know I’ll be holed up in a hotel room in Dallas for five days this coming week, well, I also know it’s Bouchercon and I won’t get any writing finished. I won’t even read much, except for the airport coming and going and the plane ride itself. I do want to finish Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Certain Dark Things this week as well; hopefully in time to get another horror novel read by Halloween. I’ve really fallen down on my reading lately–I also have some terrific ARC’s on the pile, including Elizabeth Little’s Pretty as a Picture and Alex Marwood’s The Poison Garden–and I really need to get back to dedicated reading again, rather then falling into Youtube rabbit holes every night. Reading also inspires writing, so there’s that, too.

I think the next non-fiction book I’m going to read is Richard Campenella’s Bourbon Street–as I continue my deep dive into New Orleans history.

And on that note, I think I’m going to get another cup of coffee and sit with Moreno-Garcia’s Certain Dark Things for awhile before i head back into the spice mines.

Have a lovely day, Constant Reader!

 

11412088_10155811453605290_2854015540641376322_o