Category: crime fiction

Get Closer

Monday before the surgery and all is peaceful in the Lost Apartment this morning. I still don’t know what time the surgery is going to be–they’ll be calling me later today with the time to be at the hospital (in METAIRIE)–and I am trying to have an easy day of staying calm and centered as I prepare mentally and emotionally for tomorrow. Last night I had a complete anxiety attack about everything, and even as I spiraled I knew what was happening, what was causing it and why–but that only made it a bit easier. I was concerned I might not be able to shut my mind off and sleep, but that wasn’t a problem. I fell asleep in a matter of moments after going to bed. I also slept deeply and well, feeling great and rested this morning. I have to check up on a few things to make sure things that needed to be done were done and taken care of–the anxiety from last night spiraled out of worry that the form my surgeon needed to fax to HR at the day job wasn’t sent–but even if it wasn’t, I can stay calm and probably get it all taken care of either today or tomorrow before the surgery; I can bring the form with me and Paul can FAX it to HR for me in a worst case scenario if I am too drugged out to deal with it when we get home. I am completely calm and rational about it all this morning–maybe sometimes I need to spiral and work through it to be calm the next day, I don’t know. But I am calm this morning, and rested, and relaxed. Once I finish this, I’ll check with HR to see if the form was received and if not, I’ll work on getting it filled out and returned. I don’t have to go into the office today–today is prep for surgery day, and I didn’t really see how that would work with me going in.

Why does everything have to be difficult? I suppose because otherwise life would be too easy to navigate.

We watched more Happy Valley last night, and this show is exceptionally good. British crime dramas are somehow always better than American ones–even Paul pointed out last night that “British actors look like real people and are super talented. Why do Americans focus on appearance so much?”–which is the source material for an entire other essay; you don’t see Helen Mirren and Maggie Smith and Judi Densch getting their faces shot up with poison and fillers and having everything nipped and tucked and made more generic with a scalpel to the point where their faces don’t move and they’ve become basically voice actors. Paul stayed up super late Saturday night writing a grant, so he slept most of the day and I was left to my own devices. I finished reading Lou Berney’s superb Dark Ride and started J. D. O’Brien’s Zig Zag, which I am also really enjoying. I also did some cleaning and organizing around here to try to make my workspace more functional and more Big Kitten Energy proof–it gets old having to pick up papers and re-sort them every morning because he went bounding around over everything while having the middle of the night Zoomies. It does look better organized this morning and more functional, even if it’s not complete, so we will see how it goes. I also watched another episode of Moonlighting–some are kind of hit and miss, which I didn’t remember from my original watch as it aired back in the 1980’s. Moonlighting had become a hit by then, and was starting to draw big name guest stars. Yesterday’s was Lisa Blount, who enjoyed some success in the 1980’s, but probably is best known for her supporting role in An Officer and a Gentleman–a movie I am relatively certain did not age well. It wasn’t a great episode–it was merely okay, with a clever enough plot and some good banter between David and Maddie; the chemistry was clearly there for them, but it’s another one of those “opposites attract” kind of things, which was only just then turning into a thing for television shows, primarily triggered by the popularity of the Sam and Diane pairing on Cheers that dominated the ratings and the Emmys for the entire decade of the 1980s. Now we’re so used to it that it’s tired, but back in the 1980’s the question of when David and Maddie would get together was something everyone was talking about every week.

I’m trying not to worry about the recovery for the surgery too much–thinking about the physical therapy and so forth was what sent my brain into the spiral last night–how can I be trusted to do things correctly when I’m such a fuck-up? I had one of those moments when Paul came home after his original eye surgery–I am not a trained caregiver! What if I do something wrong?–because I had to, among other things, clean the socket for him every day and apply antibiotic drops and things, and once he was home I was fucking terrified. And it was fine. His socket healed, I didn’t kill him or cause an infection, and we both survived the entire thing. I am a little anxious about Paul as caregiver, but that’s terribly unfair. On the rare occasions when I am actually sick he’s taken very good care of me, and so what if he doesn’t have a lot of experience with caregiving? Neither did I, and I’ve become very good at it over the years.

It’s kind of easy when you don’t have a choice.

And on that note, I am going to do some cleaning and organizing before reaching out to HR to see if there is anything I need to follow up on today. I’ll probably be around again later–I keep meaning to do more blatant self-promotional posts, but as the surgery date draws closer my mind just hasn’t been in that place. So have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be back later.

comfortably numb

Lou Berney is not only one of my favorite writers, but he’s also one of my favorite people in this business.

I met Lou for the first time many years ago, because we shared a panel together at Bouchercon in Raleigh (the moderator was Katrina Niidas Holm, and the other panelists were Lori Roy and Liz Milliron; none of whom I knew before and have been grateful ever since that I not only got to meet them and become friendly but also because–even better–I discovered incredible new-to-me writers whose work I’ve been enjoying ever since). Shortly after this I read his novel The Long and Faraway Gone and was completely blown away by it; it won every conceivable award for crime writing the next year, and he followed it up with the completely different but just as fascinating and brilliant November Road several years later. I’ve yet to go back and read his earlier work, but plan to eventually–but I also like having them in reserve; Lou’s not nearly as prolific as I would like. I kind of think of him as a male version of Megan Abbott: brilliant, insightful, and exceptionally gifted writers with piercing perceptions into the kinks and flaws of character that make people human.

And Dark Ride is exactly what is promised in that title–a dark ride.

I’m lost, wandering, and somewhat stoned. This parking lot, when you’re in the middle of it, deems much vastr and more expansive than it does from the street. Or do I just seem much less consequential? That’s the question. One for the ages.

It’s July, hot as balls. I stare up. The sky, pale and papery, looks like it’s about to burst into flame.

How would you describe the sky to someone who’s never seen a sky? You’d have to explain how it’s different every day. So many shades of blue, of grat. And we’re not even talking about sunrise or sunset. Plus the clouds! How would you describe clouds?1

“You need some help?”

“What?” I say.

Some dude in a suit is about to climb in his car. He’s about my age, probably a couple of years out of college. With the suit and haircut, though, he’s all business. Me, I’m wearing board shorts, flip-flops, and a vintage faded Van Halen T-shirt I found for five bucks at Goodwill. I haven’t cut my hair in almost forever and I’m a minimum-wage scarer at an amusement park fright zone.

Jesus, what a fucking great opening. (Although I did wonder if any T-shirt costs $5 at Goodwill.)

Dark Ride has about the most unlikely main character you’ll ever meet in a crime novel–Hardy “Hardly” Reed–and that above paragraph is a master-class in character. In fifty-two words and two sentences, Lou Berney created a character that I absolutely, 100% know and believe is real. I’ve known any number of Hardlys over the years, and I can also certainly identify with being in your twenties and kind of drifting aimlessly, with no plan for the future other than you’re afraid of it and you don’t want the path everyone else seems to wnt for you that you know isn’t right.

The story opens with Hardly going to the city building of some unnamed city in the Midwest (since it’s Lou Berney, I’m going out on a limb and saying it’s probably Oklahoma City or Tulsa) to get a thirty-day continuation on paying a parking ticket. A tedious, horrible, day-disrupting chore that most of us have had to deal with at some point in our lives. Personally, I despise having to go to any city or state office for any kind of business, and feel pretty confident in stating that’s probably pretty much how everyone feels about that sort of thing. (Even worse is getting the camera fucking ticket in the mail.) Hardly is, by every definition of the word, a loser–despite being very likable and relatable; the kind of man whose relatives just sigh and say, “well, that’s Hardly” when they talk about him. But Hardly doesn’t have relatives. His mother died when he was a child and he would up in foster care–and even admits he and his foster brother, a successful rising architect, got very lucky with their foster family. But he came out out of it with no purpose, no sense of direction, and no goals or desires for life. He just does his minimum-wage job, lives in his shitty rented room, and smokes a lot of weed. So do most of his friends.

And the opening paragraph and that meditation on the sky and clouds? Such a stoner thing to do. (I’ve had some experience with cannabis–especially in my twenties, but that’s a story for another time.) So, why is this amiable, stoner loser the main character of this book? we soon find out. As he waits in line to get his continuance, he sees a woman with two very young children–and notices on both a pattern of cigarette burns on each child. Horrified, he looks for someone in authority to report this to–but no one seems to care. The woman and her children leave, and he manages to meet someone who works there who pointedly won’t tell him their names but that he needs to sign in, which makes him realize he can her name that way–Tracy Shaw. He finally calls CPS and makes a report over the phone. Relieved that he’s done his duty, he goes on with the rest of the day, which includes going to work at the crappy amusement park where he works (a fair played a major role in The Long and Faraway Gone, which makes me think at some point in his life Berney must have worked for an amusement park or a fair) where we meet his co-worker and friend, a mentally challenged 16 year old named Salvadore, who is one of my favorite characters in the book.

It begins, though, to bother him that CPS never calls him back with questions or for more information–he’s sadly still young enough to believe in the efficacy and efficiency of Authority–and it begins festering in his head. He’s worried about Tracy, but he’s even more worried about the kids, seven and six by his estimate, and how their lives are being shaped and ruined by the abuse. It keeps bothering him until he decides to do something about it, and what follows is a delightfully entertaining, beautifully written saga of someone who has been completely written off by society as a loser and a wastrel yet still manages to find the strength of character and moral purpose to try to save those kids, however foolhardy–and dangerous–it may turn out to be for him.

I’m not really sure how to describe the book, to be honest. I feel like “stoner noir” is the best fit, even though the cover calls it a thriller, I don’t know if that’s actually correct or not. Hardly’s sense of purpose, his sense that he’s the only person who cares about saving those kids, reminded me of a knight’s quest from classic literature; another time he reminded me a bit of Don Quixote tilting at windmills. I loved this book. I loved the main character, I loved the voice, I loved everything about this book–except the fact I didn’t write it.

Buy it, read it, cherish and love it–and thank me later.

  1. “Bow and flows of angel’s hair, and ice cream castles in the air” per Joni Mitchell. You’re welcome. ↩︎

You and I

Sunday morning after a relaxing Saturday in the Lost Apartment. I went by to get the mail and stopped at the Fresh Market, then went back later to CVS to get my booster vaccine for COVID-19 and pick up my post-operative medications (my BASTARD insurance refused to cover the oxycodone, of all things. I hope this surgery costs them a fucking fortune). The games on television weren’t very interesting, frankly, and the only one that had any potential at all turned into a blow-out (Georgia-Tennessee). It was kind of a laid-back bland boring kind of day, which was kind of necessary. The prescription issue–I stopped by CVS on my first trip uptown, but one of my prescriptions wasn’t ready (the one I had already called to approve over the phone) but it turned out the reason they kept not filling it was because the insurance wasn’t paying for it and I had to say, “yes, I will pay out of pocket for it, thank you” which was why I had to go back later in the afternoon–so I figured I may as well make a vaccination appointment for when I do go back. You know me, always trying to be as efficient as possible and to utilize my time more effectively; seriously, I know now it’s an anxiety thing. I never quite understand my anxiety and what triggers it or causes it, or how many coping systems I have engineered over the course of my life to work around it–which turns into compulsive behavior.

I’ve yet to figure out how the obsessive part of me comes from the anxiety, but I am sure I will at some point.

My arm–the one I am having the surgery on–is sore this morning because I figured I might as well get used to that arm hurting and had the booster shot in that arm. I slept deeply and well last night; I went to bed shortly after the LSU game concluded with a 56-14 score with Jayden Daniels tying the school record for most touchdowns in a game (the other was Joe Burrow’s eight against Oklahoma in the 2019 play-offs…but Burrow scored seven in the first half and the eighth on the first drive of the second half before sitting out the rest of the game (LSU could have scored a hundred that day had they been so inclined; that game still boggles my mind that it actually happened–as well as how). If there’s any justice in the world Daniels will win the Heisman Trophy (he is clearly the best player in the country), but welcome to 2023 and college football. An impressive showing against Texas A&M won’t hurt his chances, for sure–but the fact LSU has a terrible defense this year shouldn’t overshadow what he’s accomplished with our offense. As an LSU fan, it boggles my mind that we have one of the best offenses of all-time, and yet our defense–always a point of pride in Tigerland–is one of the worst when our defense has historically always been vastly superior to our offense. We used to lose because the offense couldn’t score; now we lose because our defense is terrible. Even last night at first it looked like “same-old same-old,” with Georgia State scoring on their first two possessions before the defense clicked into gear and they never scored again.

Tulane also won again yesterday. Well done, Green Wave!

I spent some time reading Lou Berney’s Dark Ride yesterday and I am loving this book so much. Hardly, the stoner burnout loser main character, is probably one of my favorite characters I’ve read in quite some time; he resonates with me, especially with his newly awakened sense of right and wrong–which does not, I might add, change anything for his normal circumstances–he’s still a stoner burnout, still gets high as he puzzles his way into figuring out what to do next, and whether he should keep carrying about these random two kids he saw one day that might be victims of physical abuse. He reminds me in some way of a modern day American Don Quixote; I don’t know if that was what Berney was going for, but I can tell you this–he has nailed the voice of this character, and the story itself is quite good–and of course the writing, as always with Berney’s work, is spectacular…and it’s quite inspiring.

It also feels weird knowing I don’t have to go into the office tomorrow. Tomorrow is the last day I have to get everything ready in the apartment before the surgery–laying in supplies and getting everything ready to go for Tuesday. I suspect that I am going to be in some kind of drugged stupor for the first two days at least, and maybe by next weekend I’ll be lucid enough to be able to write a blog post; I don’t know. I suspect yesterday’s low energy was in some ways triggered by the knowledge of the surgery coming along with slight irritation over the prescription issue. But I made my meatballs last night (Paul astutely pointing out that I really make meatball stew rather than meatballs in gravy, and that is a very thin line) and they were very good. I also did some straightening up around here–I was expecting Paul to go work with his trainer and then go to the office for the afternoon, but his trainer canceled on him and he stayed home–moving down to lay on the couch and (hopefully) make a bed for Tug/Sparky; unlike Scooter, Tug’s a little more restless and he’s kind of gotten used to using my lap in the easy chair as his bed–and sure enough, he spent most of the day sleeping in my lap as I lazily scrolled through social media, looked things up on Google, and basically did nothing productive while watching yesterday’s (mostly boring) games. I probably should have watched Kansas-Kansas State, which the Wildcats won in a shoot out 31-24 (when was the last time both teams in the rivalry game had winning records? The futility of the college football teams in the state of Kansas is astonishing, even with KSU turning things around in the last thirty years–they’ve beaten KU fifteen straight times now). I’ll go look at what happened around the country in the sport once I finish writing this and move on to the easy chair to finish Lou’s book so I can write about it later. And I need to do some more blatant self-promotional posts before I wind up not being able to post anything at all for who knows how long?

Heavy sigh.

And on that note, I am taking my coffee and Dark Ride to my easy chair, only to emerge from it to get more coffee until I am finished reading it, and have started my next read, Zig Zag, by J. D. O’Brien. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be back later on today at some point as well….and I just remembered there is no Saints game today, so I have no excuses.

The Look of Love

It truly is incredible what a shithole of a site The Site Formerly Known as Twitter has become under the tenure of that brilliant modern thinker Elon Musk (Narrator voice: those adjectives were meant as sarcasm). Every time I go there to cross-post the blog or something, it only takes a moment or two before I am getting the fuck out of that hellish place. I know I should probably just deactivate and be done with it as it fades away into memory like MySpace did once upon a time, but something keeps me there–despite knowing its immoral to even scroll a little bit, and definitely against my own personal ethics–but I think it’s more along the lines of watching a slow-motion disaster movie, frame by frame.

If only it would bankrupt him financially, to go along with his moral and ethical bankruptcies.

Yesterday wasn’t a very good day around the ranch. I was low energy all day, and while i did get all of my work-at-home duties taken care of and handled, after running errands and having a ZOOM call with three very dear friends (who undoubtedly are sick of me talking too much on ZOOM calls), I was just flat out exhausted and simply collapsed into my easy chair with my purr kitty for the evening. I did watch a lengthy documentary about the Eastern Roman Empire, and how the Holy Roman Empire was western Europe’s attempt to recapture and regrasp the legacy of Imperial Rome, to the point of rebranding the real Roman Empire as the Byzantine, or Greek, Empire. (The history of “western” civilization is full of these sorts of reclaimings and rebrandings, as the West sought to basically claim the history of civilization in general.) It just goes to show you–the history we all learned in public school was biased and written to enhance and create a foundation for white supremacy to rest upon. There’s a rather lengthy personal essay to be written about having to relearn everything I learned as a child as an adult because it was all wrong–or people could just read Howard Zinn’s work.

Today I do have some errands to run and vaccines to get injected into my arms; I also have things around the house I need to get done. I am going to make Swedish meatballs today in the slow cooker, I think; that’ll be a nice treat to go along with the LSU game tonight against Georgia State. There really aren’t many great games today–everyone has an “easy” game scheduled for the weekend before the Thanksgiving rivalry games, many of which this is the last go-around for. It’s weird to think LSU won’t be playing their most hated rival, Florida, every year any more (but how delightful to go out with a five game winning streak over them, ha ha ha ha and fuck off, Gators), or that other classic games won’t occur anymore. I don’t know why or when LSU’s Thanksgiving rivalry weekend opponent changed from Arkansas to Texas A&M; that was a fun rivalry with the Razorbacks pulling off some upsets over the years–why is it that everyone plays lights-out when they play LSU?–but that was also a manufactured rivalry that didn’t exist before Arkansas joined the SEC.

I also want to spend some time reading this morning; Lou Berney’s Dark Ride is calling my name and I am really enjoying it. The fun thing about Lou’s work is everything is always different; no two books are ever the same, or even the same kind of voice or style. Every book is an original in every way, and I will go to my grave with The Long and Faraway Gone as one of my favorite crime novels of all time. The one thing I am looking forward to after this surgery is more time to read, and if need be, I can read on my iPad–it’s not like I haven’t downloaded hundreds of books over the years. I’m still enjoying The Rival Queens–man, I love that period of French history–and I think my next read after Lou’s will be Zig Zag, by J. D. O’Brien; since it’s about a weed dispensary heist, coming after Lou’s stoner noir seems like the proper pairing, and then after that I am moving on to the new Angie Kim.

I was exhausted last night so I slept incredibly well. I even slept in this morning, not getting out of bed before eight-thirty like a slag. I feel much more rested and emotionally even this morning, which is a very good thing. I want to get a lot done today–I really need to move furniture and figure out how to make my work station more Big Kitten Energy proof, which is possible but will take some figuring out, and I won’t be able to move anything after Tuesday’s surgery, after all, so I have to get all this stuff done before hand. I don’t feel like I’ve had the chance to think everything through the way it needs to be thought through, nor do I feel like I am prepared for the aftermath and recovery period–which I think was the explanation for yesterday’s low energy; created and maintained completely by my anxiety.

I also want to read this original text version of The Mark on the Door, a Hardy Boys mystery.

We watched Blue Beetle last night, and I really enjoyed it. First, it was lovely seeing a Latinx family centered in a super-hero movie, and to have a super-hero of Mexican ancestry. It had some really funny moments (as well as some that made me go huh?), and as far as DC/Marvel movies go, it was one of the more solid plots and origin stories, but I’m also not terribly familiar with the Blue Beetle character. I primarily remember/knew him from the Justice League comic books of the late 1980’s/early 1990’s, and he was often teamed up with Booster Gold for comedy. I don’t know what has happened to the character with all the reboots since then, but I appreciated seeing something different from a comic book movie. The lead actor, young Xolo Maridueña, was handsome and appealing and charismatic, and the rest of the cast is fine other than the old witch who gave us Presidents Nader and Sanders because she doesn’t vote with her vagina (maybe you should have, you fucking piece of trash, since your mouth and going everywhere all over 24 hour news to trash Hillary helped give us the current Supreme Court, and you should be shunned and forced to take a Game of Thrones walk of shame down Pennsylvania you fucking hateful bitch–I will carry that grudge to the grave, skank). Seeing that fucking trash was in the cast made me seriously reconsider watching, frankly, and her “acting” was a joke and so horrific that Paul and I spent a good hour recasting with actresses who wouldn’t have just cashed the check and phoned it in the way she did.) The movie is actually strongest when it focuses on the Reyes family and their dynamic (Nana is the absolute best), and while it didn’t pull down the kind of financial numbers a movie like this is intended to (and odds that it’ll be blamed by Hollywood on centering a Latinx family are pretty strong), I do think this is one of the movies that in the future will be reclaimed as a classic and one of the best in the field. I hope there will be a sequel, as was teased at the end.

But I think they’re rebooting the movie universe for DC, so who knows.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a marvelous, marvelous Saturday, Constant Reader, and may whatever teams you’re rooting for today have a nice win–unless you’re a Georgia State fan, of course.

Heartbreaker

Work at home Friday and a good night’s sleep. I did have to get up just before six to feed Tug, but went back to bed for a very cozy hour or so of additional napping on top of the sleep. It felt marvelous, and I feel actually very rested and good this morning, which is always a lovely surprise. I have work-at-home duties to get taken care of and errands to run later when I am finished with them, and then I am going to just rest and relax and read and try to write and edit and clean and organize all weekend. Monday is pre-surgery prep day, and then of course I go under the scalpel on Tuesday (don’t know what time yet). As of today I have to stop taking some of my medications and vitamins to get them out of my system by Tuesday–so really, prep work is beginning today, really. I am also still adjusting to my new teeth. I kind of laughed as I got ready for bed last night–as I took out my teeth, my hearing aids, and removed my glasses; when I am bed I can’t see, hear or talk; I definitely have mush-mouth when I take the teeth out.

I came directly home after work last night; I had to stay later than I usually do because I had to take a longer lunch on Wednesday to drive out to Jefferson Highway to get the teeth. It was already dark when I got home, and Tug of course had wreaked destruction on the workspace during the day–which is yet another reminder of how I have to a) not let the filing pile up anymore and b) might need to reorganize the workspace to limit Big Kitten Energy destruction and/or mess. That could be a very good project for this weekend. LSU is playing Georgia State Saturday night (big deal, right?) and I am not even sure the game is going to even be televised, frankly, or if it is, it’s probably one of those minor SEC network “plus” channels I always have to figure out how to get every single time (it’s an on-going thing with the LSU gymnastics meets), and even glancing over the schedule this weekend there’s really not much of anything, other than Georgia-Tennessee and Kansas-Kansas State; all the big rivalry games are next weekend, so this is kind of a lull weekend before the Thanksgiving weekend extravaganza, which hopefully I won’t be too zonked out on medications to enjoy. I was thinking I might try to make pulled turkey in the slow cooker for Thanksgiving, but I wouldn’t be able to pull it apart. I’m not really sure what our food situation is going to be, in all honesty, until after I am off the painkillers. I’ll have to put some thought into that and make groceries at some point before Tuesday. I know we have things in the freezer that can be thawed out and/or cooked; but it also wouldn’t hurt to have other options available, either.

I got caught up on my reality television shows last night–Real Housewives continue to have this weird hold on my interest and imagination which I can’t really explain; particularly because these women generally are examples of everything I think is wrong with American culture and society–and then got sucked into some more Youtube documentaries about the fall of Rome, the war between Rome and the Gauls, and more about the schism between the Catholic and Orthodox churches–the original split of Christianity and dogma. My fascination with the Eastern Roman Empire continues unabated, as well as my interest in the Hapsburgs and the sixteenth century (I am loving The Rival Queens, my current non-fiction read, and need to read more Nancy Goldstone histories). I also want to finish reading Lou Berney’s Dark Ride this weekend, and get started on my next read before the surgery. I also need to remember to keep hitting save as Tug keeps waltzing over my keyboard and wreaking havoc on my screen. I do feel hopeful that the time out from the office will give me time to do more reading and writing and start working my way out from under everything; one can always hope. It can get overwhelming sometimes just thinking about everything I need to do and get done.

I was also thinking the other day about how I always say I “compartmentalize” my life and my personal history..and wondering if the word I should be using when I say that is “repress”; because isn’t that what you’re doing when you are deliberately trying not to think about your past and things you’ve experienced? Especially when those events can be traumatic? Maybe it wasn’t the healthiest way to deal with things, but I also think setting personal boundaries for behavior you will and will not accept from friends and acquaintances is healthy. I am pretty easy-going, or at least deceive myself into believing that, because I have this insane and unhealthy need to be liked. As a general rule I tend to not get angry when people cross my boundaries. It takes a while for it to start to get to me, but when I am angry it’s because I care and the behavior has offended my sensibilities in some way. When you get to the point where the reaction you get is for me to go completely cold and stop caring? You’ll never come back from that with me. Once I stop caring, I stop caring–and if that hurts you, it isn’t my problem–because by that point you’ve crossed my boundaries so many times despite multiple warnings (narcissists never listen to warnings because no one would ever give up the AMAZING gift of their friendship–ha ha ha ha ha, Keep dreaming.), yet you continue to throw additional chances given back in my face.

Bye, Felicia.

And on that note, I am going to start getting some things done around here before I start my work for the day. Have a great Friday–and be warned there will probably be Blatant Self-Promotion to come.

A Hard Knock Life

Tuesday night as I talked with Jean, Candice and Harry about my two latest books I suddenly realized–towards the end of the conversation–that technically I have a third book out in current release with my name on the spine.

To wit, this marvelous anthology:

Which, if you like, you can order right here! There are two options to choose from–the clothbound special edition with the cover page signed by all three of us, or the less expensive paperback. I believe there’s also an ebook option.

And look at this table of contents:

How is that for some amazing company to be in, eh? Not to mention the co-editor credit with Art Taylor and Donna Andrews, who are as equally lovely as people as they are insanely talented writers (and highly intelligent people). I mean, my story is sandwiched in between stories by Martin Edwards and Naomi Hirahara, for fuck’s sake.

Rarified air, indeed.

So, who is this Father Knox, and what are these commandments that had to be broken?

Father Knox himself

Father Knox was an early twentieth century mystery writer, who was also a member of the Detection Club, along with contemporaries like G. K. Chesterton and Agatha Christie–speaking of rarefied air–and he came up with the ten commandments for mystery novels:

  1. The Criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has allowed to follow.
  2. All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.
  3. Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.
  4. No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end.
  5. No (outdated racist term for someone of Chinese ancestry) must figure in the story.
  6. No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.
  7. The detective must not himself commit the crime.
  8. The detective must not light on any clues which are not instantly produced for the inspection of the reader.
  9. The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal any thoughts which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly below that of the average reader.
  10. Twin brother, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been dully prepared for them.

I mean, how fun would it be to write a story breaking any of these rules, let alone a book doing so (hmmm, tempting–this would be a great fun thing for a Scotty adventure)?

I chose commandment two: all supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course, so I wrote a suspense story that may (or may not) have a supernatural agency involved; “The Ditch,” which is also a Corinth County story and one I am particularly pleased with.

I am going to begin reading the anthology, perhaps a story a day, as part of my Short Story Project (always ongoing) as well as to help promote the anthology, which has as fine a collection of contributors as I’ve ever been associated with.

And the book itself? Gorgeous.

The One You Love

Tuesday and back into the office. My energy spurt after getting home from the pre-operation appointments didn’t last for very long, I’m afraid, and by the middle of yesterday afternoon I was groggy and tired; adrenaline crash from the anxiety rollercoaster, no doubt. We started watching Happy Valley, which is certainly a grim show (I said to Paul, “it’s like a British version of Mare of Easttown“–although obviously Happy Valley came first, but they are very similar in tone and mood: bleak). But the acting and the writing is first rate, and we both are really enjoying it. They called in some prescriptions for me that I’ll need post-surgery, but apparently in checking the CVS website, I have to call them about the pain pills. Terrific. It’s always such a joy trying to reach a pharmacy on the phone. But I have to swing by uptown to get the mail after work today, and so I might as well call so I can pick everything up on my way home from the office.

I am way behind on everything, but I feel a lot better about the post-surgery period. I don’t know how long it’s going to take before the pain goes away, but I imagine I am going to be in a painkiller stupor for at least a couple of days, at the very least. I’ve never really had the kind of surgery where you’re put under and cut on since I had my tonsils out when I was three or four. That’s not bad–going sixty years between surgeries–so I really have nought to complain about, but I kind of wish I had more experience with it so I knew what to expect more; it’s the not-knowing that really triggers my anxiety. Now I am wondering about putting on shirts with the arm-brace on; am I allowed to take it off to put on a shirt if I put it right back on again? Doesn’t the arm need to stay in the same position, even when I am showering? Heavy sigh. They did send me home with a packet of information to read over, so I’ll be doing that today as well. I also have to get the paperwork for my leave finished and turned into Admin today. Heavy sigh. I do have the letter from the surgeon that is required, and I think I have everything I need. (More anxiety, hurray.)

I also need to practice putting the brace on, too. The demonstration wasn’t enough to make me think oh sure I can do this easily on my own with a bent arm.

For the record, I tore my biceps muscle in my left arm back in January. For a number of reasons I am not in the mood to go into right now, I am now finally getting the surgery to have the muscle repaired. It’s a long and slow and painful recovery process; I need to wear the brace for at least three to four weeks, and then it’s physical therapy for months until I get the clearance that it’s all healed and working properly again. I got the distinct impression yesterday that it’ll take about a week for me to be weaned off the pain medications–again, that’s fine, what choice do I have? I don’t know how much, if any, typing I’ll be able to do that first week, and besides, if my brain is scrambled on oxycodone, I wouldn’t be able to write and/or create much anyway. But it didn’t sound like things were going to be as terrible or as worst-case as my mind always seems to want to come up with.

It was also a cold and wet rainy day yesterday; we’ve not had rain in quite some time–not nearly as much as usual in our tropical clime–so the whole day had that undercurrent and wet and cold that I’ve not experienced in quite some time (last winter, to be precise) and so that was also off-putting. I felt cold all day, was wrapped up in a blanket in my easy chair as I doom scrolled social media, watched some documentaries on Youtube (the wives of Charlemagne; the separation of power between the Church and the Holy Roman Empire; and the Black Death), and also caught an episode of Moonlighting, in which Maddie’s mother thinks her husband is cheating so David and Maddie investigate. I also saw some social media posts about Moonlighting not aging as well as I had originally thought, which was worrying. I have such fond memories of the show, and I’ve been enjoying rewatching it, and I thought I was paying attention to the “well it was a different time” things–but I didn’t really see the show as misogynist as I feared it would be, and there were other things that I was certain wouldn’t hold up on–casual homophobia? Casual racism? Casual misogyny? It was written and filmed in the same decade that gave us such great misogynist comedies as Porky’s, Sixteen Candles, and Weird Science (don’t @ me; I don’t make the rules), so how could it not be problematic on some levels today? I’m also a little disappointed that my rewatching didn’t somehow note the red flags (I actually posted at one point that I was surprised it wasn’t more offensive); but it’s also the classic set-up arrangement for old-style screwball romantic comedies–one prim and proper character, another who is spontaneous and always up for a good time and both learn from each other as they grow together into coupledom. I know there are some issues in the old movies too–but I still love them.

Perhaps that might make a good essay?

And today is the official release day for Mississippi River Mischief!

And on that note, it’s off to the spice mines with me. Have a great Tuesday, everyone!

eye in the sky

So it’s Monday morning and I took the day off from work, as I have to head out to Metairie for my pre-operation meetings and clearances and so forth. Woo-hoo. But at least today I expect to know what my recovery is going to look like, and how much time I will actually need to be out of the office. I didn’t sleep great on Saturday night, despite LSU’s big win over Florida, and was up before seven yesterday morning and not really feeling like doing much of anything. I did spend some time with Lou Berney’s delightful Dark Ride, which is like nothing he’s done before–something I always deeply admire with authors–and I really love the voice of his main character. There’s a reason Lou’s won every conceivable award from crime fiction writing; his work is exceptional and I only wish he were more prolific. Hardly is memorable, for many reasons that I cannot wait to get into when I’ve finished reading the book.

The Saints played abysmally yesterday, so I was glad I decided I was too drained already to expand any more emotional energy on watching the game. I was very low energy all weekend, which isn’t surprising, given that I’m kind of dreading the information I am going to be getting today even as I know it’s information that I need to have in order to make decisions that need to be made. Heavy sigh, yes, small wonder I was low energy all weekend. But that’s okay; I did actually think about writing this weekend, and did some of the mental groundwork and even wrote a scene in longhand in my journal, of all things. I also started coming up with names for characters for the next book, which is always fun, and started thinking about which direction to take the story. This is progress, and I will accept that gratefully without flagellating myself or wishing I had produced more and had written something on the computer.

I’m not going to lie, my anxiety is spiking this morning and so I am going to need to struggle a bit with it this morning. I know I’m just borrowing trouble, and being anxious or nervous about the appointments this morning will not change and/or affect what I am going to be told today, which is knowledge I am going to try to use as I sit here to calm my nerves and keep my adrenaline from spiking. I’m going to take Lou’s book with me this morning to read while I wait at the surgeon’s office, and thank God for good books with great writing from talented friends, right? It’s weird to think I’m having surgery next week and it’s also Thanksgiving week, too. I am not sure what we’re going to do for the holiday, since it’s two days after my surgery, but I can get some things over the weekend for it and hopefully it won’t be too big of a deal to make pulled turkey in the crockpot, but then how will I shred the meat with just one hand? A conundrum, for sure. I am going to probably be learning all kinds of lessons in these coming weeks about how imperative it is to have two hands–which is ableist thinking, I know; some people make do their entire lives with merely one hand.

The big news in college football is that Texas A&M went ahead and fired their head coach, Jimbo Fisher, triggering the biggest payout ever for a fired football coach. I thought, at the time, that the contract extension was insane; all he’d managed to do was take A&M to a one-loss season during a pandemic and a limited schedule. They finished in the top ten that year, if I am remembering correctly, but they still didn’t win their division or make it to Atlanta, so I thought it was presumptuous. Of course, this was also right around the time that it was becoming apparent that LSU was going to fire Ed Orgeron, and Fisher had been a target before Orgeron was hired….so A&M was preemptively moving to keep their coach from leaving for Baton Rouge. But A&M underperformed other than that one season, and it was a very bad deal–it’s costing them almost eighty million dollars to fire Fisher, which is also going to create a massive mess for hiring a replacement and for the replacement as well. Fisher was terminated immediately and not being allowed to finish out the season, so when A&M rolls into Tiger Stadium Thanksgiving weekend, they’ll be led by an interim coach. It’s not the first time the LSU-A&M game has had an interim head coach calling the game, either, nor will it be the last, most likely. I mean, seriously–how much money do the Aggie Exes have, for Christ’s sake?

Apparently, a lot. I would imagine the Longhorns are even richer, and they’ll be in the SEC next year.

We finished watching Karen Pirie last night, and it was on the third episode that I realized I’d read the book on which it was based–The Distant Echo, which I had greatly enjoyed. We also are watching the second season of the Jane Seymour crime series, Harry Wild, which is enjoyable–and applause for Ms. Seymour for allowing herself to age gracefully. There you see the primary difference between British and American actresses; Maggie Smith, Diana Rigg, Helen Mirren and Judi Densch have allowed themselves to age, and it’s a beautiful thing to see–whereas American actresses their age now have rigid faces filled with Botox and filler and with all their skin pulled back tightly. It always seemed to me that having a face incapable of movement or expressing emotion would be a negative for an actress, but their insecurities and fears are also predicated on generations of youth worship in Hollywood and sweeping actresses out the door once they’ve hit forty. (In All About Eve the age issue for Margo was turning forty; that same year Sunset Boulevard gave us fifty-year-old has-been Gloria Swanson. The irony that Jessica Lange and That Woman were twenty years older when they played Crawford and Davis in Feud–in which the two fifty-something women miraculously revived their careera–wasn’t lost on this viewer.)

And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close and start getting ready for this morning’s round of pre-surgery appointments. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be back this afternoon for some blatant self-promotion.

Louisiana Saturday Night

There are few things more Louisiana than rooting for LSU…unless its rooting for the Saints, maybe. Southern people love their football, especially the college variety.

Paul and I have not been to a game since 2021, when our “never saw the Tigers lose in person” streak, which began with the Mississippi game in 2010, came to an end with the only loss to Auburn in Tiger Stadium this century. We managed to make it through twelve seasons without ever seeing the Tigers lose while we were at the stadium, which is a pretty good run.

Chanse was an LSU alum–he even played football there–and I think I’d idly mentioned in the first book that he’d been injured in the Sugar Bowl in the last game of his senior year, and never elaborated more than that on his past at LSU. I think there were some more reflections in the second book in that series, but I know I never brought it up again after the second book in the series. I have an in-progress Chanse novella, which is set on the LSU campus at his old fraternity, but I don’t know if I’ll ever finish the story of the fraternity murder. As for Scotty, his background was so vastly different from Chanse’s that I couldn’t really send him to LSU. Men in his family on his mother’s side all go to Vanderbilt; his sister Rain went to Baylor. Storm did his undergrad at Vanderbilt but went to Tulane Law. Scotty of course flunked out of Vanderbilt (his parents rebelliously chose UNO), but the whole family on both sides root for LSU.

And of course, Valerie’s twin sons go to LSU in A Streetcar Named Murder.

I also make the point that the murder victim–a cousin of Scotty’s–in Mississippi River Mischief, along with his wife and kids, went to LSU; the wife was even a Golden Girl with the marching band (the kids are current students there). I built an entire Scotty mystery around the kidnapping of Mike the Tiger, the live mascot who lives on campus (Baton Rouge Bingo) and while I’ve not really done a lot of referencing of LSU in the Scotty series since that particular book, that is probably going to change with one of the upcoming books in the series. I roughly have plans for three more–one set during the summer of 2019, while the boys are living in the dower house on Papa Diderot’s estate in the Garden District; another during the cursed Carnival of 2020, and then a pandemic shut down book…and that just might be the end of the series. It may not be–I will probably keep writing Scotty books as long as I can type and the synapses in my brain still fire–but I am not going to rule out ending the series, either. Depending on what happens with my surgery and my recovery, I hope to write the next Scotty this coming spring.

And there are some things from this current book I’ll have to deal with in the next as well–as well as Scotty’s grandparents and parents aging. I’m thinking the cursed Carnival book will deal with a death in the Bradley family and the fall-out from Papa Bradley’s will. (I’ve only really gone into the Bradley side of the family once; and there’s a lot to unearth and explore there.)

I’m also toying with the idea of writing a book from Taylor’s perspective, and there’s always that Colin book I’ve been wanting to write forever.

So, if you want the series to continue, it will help if you order a copy of it!

Looking Good, Feeling Gorgeous

As I was saying in my other blatant self-promotional post of today (for Mississippi River Mischief) I rather jokingly mentioned that perhaps my childhood fandom of celebrities like Cher, Bette Midler, Liza Minnelli, Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Barbara Stanwyck was an early sign of my destiny as a gay man; and yes, I know that’s a stereotype but as I always say, “stereotypes have to start somewhere“–there’s occasionally some kernel of truth in a gay stereotype. (Example: Jack on Will & Grace got some grief for being a stereotype–but I’ve known any number of gay men who were very similar to Jack; imagine being told you’re a stereotype.)

RuPaul’s genius idea to kind of create a Project Runway and American Idol hybrid reality show started out very slow–it was on Logo, I believe, and the budget was incredibly bare bones that first season or two or three; part of the fun of the show was how much it looked like a cable-access do-it-yourself reality show. And as usual with any art form created by gay men, it was popular with gay men and straight women; the show slowly started building an audience and then WHAM! One day it seemed like drag had taken over the world.

Katya from RuPaul’s Drag Race, whom I find hilarious–and beautiful.

Paul and I lost interest in the show after the Bianca-Courtney-Adore season, because that season was so good we both felt that anything after that would be anti-climactic. I know there have been other good seasons and incredibly fierce queens since then, but we came back for All Stars Season 2 (when I became a fan of Katya, actually) and were bitterly disappointed at how scripted, staged, and unfair the entire season was to everyone who wasn’t Alaska, Detox, or Roxxy. And just like with Project Runway, once we saw a season that was clearly predetermined from the start, we stopped watching.

I have zero interest in watching a “competition” with a predetermined winner, which is kind of why I don’t watch WWE much anymore. (it’s also very cartoonish, but that’s a subject for another time.)

I know there are cisgender women who have issues with drag, and I know there are transwomen who do as well; I think the transwomen’s issues primarily have to do with the conflation between the two–which was clearly prescient, given the rise of the raw sewage known as LibsofTikTok and “Moms4Liberty” (how’d that election go for you on Tuesday, you miserable soulless contemptible bigoted shrews? CRY MORE BITCHES, your tears are like Mimosas to us gays), who see no difference (because the harpies are as ignorant and uneducated as they are bitter, soulless, and unChristian). I’ve never seen a lot of criticism for drag from the straight cisgender women as a general rule, but I know there are concerns and critiques from the feminist community, which I do not dismiss or take lightly.

But since the primary straight cisgender woman who used to scream at me about the “misogyny of drag” also has turned out to be a sociopathic TERF who is dead to me (shocker, I know; a feminist who hates drag is a bigoted disgusting piece of shit TERF? Who could have seen that coming?), I don’t necessarily take those feminist critiques as seriously as I used to. If your feminism is about cisgender white women only, go fuck yourself. (This is the same woman who claimed to be a gay ally because she loved going to gay bars where gay men made much of her…the irony that it was primarily because she acted like an over-the-top drag queen completely escaped her–but then, drag queens competed with her for attention in gay bars, and I’ve also come to recognize that the poor bitch is so fucking thirsty for attention that she probably needs intense therapy for at least a decade.)

I’ve always seen drag as a critique of the societal notions of what a woman is supposed to be; drag is that expectation taken over the top to the nth degree. This is why they have the exaggerated everything–from wigs to shoes to gowns to make-up to hip padding and fake boobs. (I also think that the reason drag kings never attained the same level of popularity and mainstreaming as the queens is because it’s harder to over-exaggerate masculinity; it’s not as easy to create the illusion of a thickly muscled body, a super-deep baritone voice, and thick body hair–and besides, who wants to watch women performing toxic masculinity? And as a general rule, men don’t wear make-up when they are cosplaying masculinity.) They’re also loud, funny, and crude–all the things women aren’t supposed to be in proper society–and when they are hyper-sexualized, it’s to make a point about the hyper-sexualizing of women by the dominant culture. Women aren’t supposed to have control of their bodies and sexuality; they aren’t supposed to be crude and crass and vulgar. They aren’t parodying women; they are parodying the cultural expectations (that still exist) for women by over-exaggerating everything and reflecting back to the overall societal culture about how we limit and control women.

I tried explaining this several times to my former friend, but she was also sociopathic in her narcissistic belief that she was never wrong. She was exhausting, frankly, and when I cut her out of my life like the cancerous tumor she was, it was amazing how much better I felt knowing I would never see any of her ignorant bigotry anywhere on my social media ever again, and sorry–you come for transpeople, you’re coming for all of us.

Keep your conditional allyship, bitch.

It’s called intersectionality, use the Google.

And yes, there are misogynistic gay men and drag queens. Some of the common language of drag is misogynist; “fishy” and so forth are questionable–but again, it plays into that critique of societal feminine archetypes; women would never talk about themselves that way and would be furious if a straight man did; so why is it okay for gay men and drag queens to do so? It’s not really; but if you’re going to come for drag with honest concerns about misogynist anti-woman language, that’s one thing; when you come for the entire community because of it, fuck you with a cheese grater.

So, part of the reason I wrote Death Drop was for the same reasons I write y/a about rape culture and homophobia and racism; to put a human face on an issue that might help the reader develop more empathy about the subject than they may have felt before reading my book. Death Drop is not going to convince drag-haters or TERFs that their beliefs and values are trash and they need to rethink and reevaluate; but maybe, just maybe, someone who doesn’t know much about the subject and the issues around it might learn something.

That may be hubris, but you can’t be a writer without some level of hubris in your personality.

So, feel free to click on this link and order several copies! They make great gifts for homophobes, and Christmas is coming!