Category: diversity

Jane

Tuesday and feeling somewhat better this morning. I just hate the whole head congestion thing, along with the scratchy throat and phlegmy cough. Not a fan–but are there people who like being sick? I suppose there are; anything you think is too outrageous for people to be into is more about your own naivete, really. It was smart to not go into the office yesterday–I don’t remember if I mentioned it yesterday or not, but I got up early and was sick, so I called out for the day. Sniffling, sneezing and coughing while working in a clinic? Not wise. I do feel much better this morning, and hope to make it through the day. I feel rested, which is always best, and a good night’s sleep definitely helped. I watched more of Season 1 of the UK Traitors (the OG, if you will)–it’s fun; every day people and it is the first season ever, so you can see how they learned to make the show better as they went. This first group didn’t have a clue about the game going in–everyone in every season later had a season to watch to get a grasp of how it works, so for this group, everything catches them by surprise–the challenges remain similar, with slight alterations per season. Sparky slept in my lap most of the day, which was also lovely, so overall, outside of feeling awful–I hate when my joints ache and my eyes water–it wasn’t too terrible.

I also tried for a bit to catch up on the news, but it was all so depressing I couldn’t bear it for terribly long. To heal my brain and soul from that horror, I spent some time looking at fan videos about the Heated Rivalry boys. For whatever reason, they–and their friendship–just please me endlessly. It’s always lovely when new stars explode into the night sky, isn’t it? I don’t know if we are conditioned to love rags-to-riches stories or if it’s organic within our psyches, but it’s so lovely to see two talented young men who were waiting tables a year ago become two of the most beloved actors on the planet, isn’t it? I remember seeing that video, where they were going to crash the viewing party at a gay bar in West Hollywood, and were worried no one would recognize them…of course, everyone did and loved and welcomed them, which was so nice. They genuinely seem like level-headed young men who are just as shocked as anyone they’ve blown up the way they did, and also seem to be very appreciative of it all. I do remember how it felt to publish my first book, to be considered a peer by other authors, and my first interactions with people who’d read my book. Mine wasn’t even remotely close to what they are experiencing, and it just brings me joy to see them (along with some of the Olympic athletes) enjoying the unexpected ride. I don’t think they’ve had much time to process anything–it literally blew up overnight–but I hope they never lose that sense of “is this really happening to me” that is so much fun to watch.

The primary war between Senator Bill Cassidy and “liberal” (as if) Julia Letlow continues to be entertaining, if tedious. Letlow’s finally dug her heels in and started throwing mud back at Cassidy–mainly, his vote to impeach their foul lord and master–and while it is fun watching MAGA Republicans turning on each other, you can only see those ads so many times before they become boring and old and tired. I do find it interesting that Letlow’s voice-over actor is a man, while Cassidy’s is a woman. It’s interesting to me that they use a differently gendered voice to smear their opponent, and what does that mean? Since Letlow is a woman, they need to have a man attack Cassidy, and vice versa? Is there some sexism/misogyny at play here? Is it because its “ungentlemanly” for Cassidy to attack a woman, so they hired a woman voice over actor? Likewise, does using a male voice for Letlow’s ad mean to convey strength–“I may be a woman, but here’s a man to make my case for me”? It also sent me down a wormhole of wondering who these voice actors are, and if there’s a playbook for political voice actors–“stress this word, draw out that one, lower your voice here” and so on. I wonder if there are more of these style voice actors (“running a racist campaign? Have we got the woman voice actor for YOU”) or if it’s just this man and woman doing them for everyone…and it does make you wonder a bit about the voice actors, doesn’t it?

I think me getting sick–Paul was sick last week, and undoubtedly passed it on to me as he recovered–was kind of a good thing, in a weird way. I don’t really recall having anything else wrong with me the last few years other than the big things–which kind of took up all of my head space–but I honestly don’t remember the last time I dosed myself with DayQuil before this past weekend, which is kind of a good thing? I have to remember, always, that my immune system is compromised, thanks to the ulcerative colitis, and the medication I take for it also makes me more prone to infection, and so I need to be a lot more careful about being exposed to things when I am out and about. So, getting this first cold or whatever it may be was an excellent reminder to be careful–although there’s not much I can do when Paul brings something home to me, is there?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning!

Screenshot

Desert Angel

Monday and I am not going into the office this morning. I started feeling sick yesterday morning, and as the day progressed, I felt worse and worse, only finding relief in some over the counter DayQuil and my Flonase. I got up this morning still feverish, congested, and unwell–so I called (texted) out sick. I am going to rest today and hope that’s all I need for this to run its course. I loathe being sick, but at least this time it’s something minor. Of course, the colitis is an auto-immune thing, and the medication I take for it increases my risk for infections, so there is that, too. I’ve not really been sick like this in a while, though, so I can’t really complain. Paul was sick first, and so I probably picked this up from him. All I wanted to do yesterday was sleep and rest, so that’s what I did for the longest time.I had a lovely weekend, despite everything going on in the world, which is one of those weird dichotomies of life. We watched the HBO documentary Murder in Glitter Ball City, which was interesting–gay murder in Louisville; I remember the case when it happened–and then I started watching the first season of the UK’s version of The Traitors. The cast is all every day people from all walks of life, so it should be interesting. The US version is also going to start casting non-celebrities, too, so it should be interesting watching and seeing if it works with any group of people. My guess is yes–all you need is a diverse group of twenty people for the premise to work.

Ironically, today’s title is a song Stevie Nicks wrote for the first Gulf War, out of concern for our fighting men and women. Here we are again, sticking our unwanted noses into the Middle East yet again as a “fight for our security”–it was a lie in 2002 and 2003, it’s an even bigger lie now–and at least this time, Americans are in a different place than we were after 9/11. (Although some of us saw through the right wing propaganda and knew it was all lies from the start, only to be called traitors who didn’t support the troops…which was the ultimate irony because one would naturally assume that supporting the troops would include not wanting them to be killed or maimed for nothing (or rather so Dick Cheney’s war profiteer buddies could get rich), but what do I know, right? Yeah, I am pissed as fuck about this shit, but still trying to not vent my spleen everywhere and direct it where it actually needs to go. This is happening again because we left the Reich off the hook for the Bush administration’s lies and corruption. As a nation, isn’t it time we learned ONE fucking lesson from experience?

Sigh.

I can’t believe it’s March already. Sheesh! It’s the Carnival effect, and we go through it every year, don’t we? And yet it catches us off guard every year, doesn’t it? Just like, I suppose, how we forget from summer to summer how brutally hot it gets here. Local amnesia? It’s entirely possible.

I watched some of the news yesterday as I rested in my chair and Sparky slept in my lap, but it eventually was too rage-inducing so I turned away from that and watched some history videos on Youtube (Margaret of Austria, the French Wars of Religion, the Battle of Midway) before settling in for Murder in Glitter Ball City, which I did enjoy, and which also raised some interesting questions for me about power dynamics in gay relationships–the gay couple in this were no Shane and Ilya, believe you me–and also reminded me of my short story “An Arrow for Sebastian.” I also kind of basked in the glow of Connor Storrie killing it on Saturday Night Live–I am such a fan, and really hope to see his star continue to rise. I love the whole thing about how both he and Hudson Williams were basically waiting tables when they got the gig, and now are global superstars. They also seem like such really nice guys, who are just gobsmacked and grateful for this change in fortune they’re experiencing. Stay away from both of them, Ryan Murphy. You can have Ashton Kutcher.

And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close and go lie down again for a bit. Hope you’re having a lovely day, Constant Reader, and hopefully I’ll be back and feeling better in the morning.

Cosimo de Medici, the father of his people, in the main square near the Uffizi

Unconditional Love

Saturday morning and all is well here in the Lost Apartment. Yesterday turned out lovely, after the rain, there was this lovely chill dampness to the air that was quite nice. I got all of my work done without a problem, and worked on the house. The kitchen looks terrific now–I still need to do the floors and some touch up; same with living room–and it was nice to come downstairs to a very clean kitchen and work space. I also did all the dishes and all the laundry! I also spent some time icing my ankles, and will probably do that some more today. I never got around to writing yesterday, and I didn’t read anything I have in progress already (I honestly don’t know what’s wrong with my brain lately), but as I was moving things around I picked up a couple of books that I paged through a bit (The Last Picture Show and Michelangelo, but more on those later), so that’s something. I watched the reunions for The Traitors seasons 3 and 4, which were fun (more on those later). When Paul came down, I finished the day’s chores and settled in for the LSU-Dartmouth baseball game, before we switched over to the LSU Gymnastics meet against Alabama (yes, if you didn’t know already, we are a very LSU house), and then it was off to bed. I slept really well for the first time in a while, and feel rested. My Achilles tendons also need icing this morning before I head out for my errands later this morning.

Today, I am going to pick up the mail, and make some groceries on the way back home. I had planned on washing the car, but now I don’t think I am going to. I also need to get mailing envelopes because I’ve been terribly lazy about sending the copies of my book to the people I need to; but this whole month has been kind of weird in some ways, which I am still thinking about and processing. I am also a little freaked out that tomorrow is March 1 already, but that’s how time passes in New Orleans in the first two months of the year. It also looks gray outside this morning, but it’s supposed to be sunny and warm by the early afternoon.

As I had mentioned, as I was moving books around yesterday, I came across copies of Larry McMurtry’s The Last Picture Show and Michelangelo by William E. Wallace, both books I enjoyed, and The Last Picture Show was influential on me, I think, as a writer. The Last Picture Show was basically another, male-driven version of Peyton Place–the dark, dirty sex secrets of a small town, and it also made me a lifelong fan of McMurtry. (I also loved the film version.) I was going to reread it a few summers ago, but I gave up on the read when we got to the calf-fucking and taking Billy to the hooker who bloodied his nose. Billy was unable to give consent to anything, so from a modern reading this entire sequence is pretty disturbing, but I think I will give it another go because of how the book treats homosexuality; I’d like to see the book through that lens, and see precisely how the future Oscar winning screenwriter of Brokeback Mountain dealt with it in an early novel.

Left Coast Crime is criming right now, and of course I am enjoying everyone’s social media posts, but…I don’t have any FOMO? Considering FOMO has been a major driving factor throughout my life, and often to my own detriment, I think this is some serious personal growth. I never really liked the “pick me” side of my fractured personality, and I am not in the least bit sorry to banish that part of my brain into some remote, dusty and not easily accessed back wrinkle in the very back of my skull. I think this is a big step forward for me, you know?

Connor Storrie is hosting Saturday Night Live tonight, and I may stay up to watch some of it–I can also replay it on Peacock tomorrow morning, or find clips on Youtube if I can’t stay up that late. They are also bringing on one or two of the Hughes bros–trying to rehab them in front of the audience Connor will bring them (straight women and gay men–yeah, I am sure they’ll be embraced by the live audience and we should be prepared for NBC to mute any negative audience reactions to their stain of an appearance. Since NBC also hosts the Olympics, obviously they feel the need to rehabilitate the men who can’t say sorry, ladies, we totally fucked up in the moment and we are so sorry to spit in your faces about your accomplishments like that. You see how institutions always rally to the cause of infantile boys who never grow up? I do love the way the country has stepped up for the women, though. My favorite thing this past week has been reading the comments on the social media posts of the NHL or the teams’ accounts.

And I think a harsh critique and rebuke of that infantilizing “boys will be boys/locker room talk” enabling bullshit is in order, and could be the introduction to my essays series on masculinity. Hmmm.

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

David Florentine is a great New Orleans photographer; check out his work! I especially love the spectral mist in this shot. You can check out his website here.

Love is Like a River

Can we pretend yesterday was just a bad dream and start over? Sheesh.

It began with me not sleeping well on Sunday night. I was having some stomach issues on Sunday–heartburn, mostly, with an occasional side of unpleasant burping–and then remembered that oh yes, tomorrow is my injection and I can usually tell the days leading into it., which was why I wasn’t hungry or eating that much over the weekend, and the last few days of last week. Okay, fine, but the heartburn was intermittent and thus I had a night of fitful sleep where I awoke periodically, but never really fell into a really deep sleep. The reason I hit “snooze” yesterday morning just once was because it was warm and comfortable and Sparky was curled up in a ball on my pillow beside me. But I was already awake, needed to shave, and so I grabbed my sweats and ventured out in the horribly cold apartment, and down the stairs, where it was even colder. YIKES. I noticed when I was running water to fill the sink to shave that there wasn’t much water pressure.

Which, of course, led to there not being enough water pressure for the shower.

Sigh. I know it’s more a habit and a mental thing, but I never really feel awake until I’ve showered and gotten cleaned up. Once I am out of the shower, I feel ready to face the day. Not showering? A long day in which I am out of sorts literally almost all day. Turns out, a big water main near the intersection of Claiborne and Toledano burst…and it flooded the neighborhood before they were able to get it off. The drop in water pressure also led to a boil water advisory, businesses and schools closed, and so on. Such a New Orleans thing (note: put that in a Scotty book)!

After I got to work, the day leveled off and I had a relatively good day at the office, in spite of being tired and not taking a hot shower on a cold morning (cold again this morning, but at least no blizzard). Of course, the day was going to be one of those days, it’s just that none of the nonsense was work-related, more of a macro thing than anything else.

Ugh, the world was ablaze yesterday, wasn’t it? The glow I was feeling coming out of the Olympics is now gone, and I rescind my pride in the US Men’s hockey team winning gold–and their alchemic transmutation of gold to lead. Straight men in groups are always garbage, especially when they think no one who isn’t a straight white men won’t know. “Locker room talk,” that bullshit. As for the Hughes brothers, congratulations on being pieces of shit and letting us all know that your mother is one, too. I really don’t think that bitch should be in charge of the safety of young women when she excuses demeaning talk about women from her own sons. This tells me she did a shitty job of raising decent human beings, and I suspect all their “advocacy” for Pride Nights and all that is just PR. “Yay, spend your money to come see us play and buy our merch!” while calling us fags in the locker room and laughing. The minute any white woman pulls out that whole “locker room talk/boys will be boys” dismissal? That tells me she doesn’t believe rape victims, thinks sluts deserve to be raped for leading men astray. I wasn’t a hockey fan–never watch, don’t care–before this, and I won’t be watching any men’s hockey again, and certainly not the US men’s team. I hope they never qualify for another medal round at the Olympics, frankly. That trash doesn’t represent me.

I can’t imagine how the women’s team felt, seeing and hearing that after cheering the men on in every game.

At least my taxes are done. That’s something, right?

Here’s hoping for a better day today! See you tomorrow!

The height difference between the street and the sidewalk is demonstrated by the live oak roots!

Blue Eyes

Its the morning of Ash Wednesday and I am up at my normal time, trying to get back to normal and back into my normal day-to-day life now that Carnival is over for another year. The city is probably still in ruins, because there’s only so much they can clean up overnight, you know? The trees of St. Charles are dripping with beads and crepe paper and, of course, toilet paper from racist Tucks, er, Sucks1. I am so tired of the insidious nature of racism in incredibly stupid and small-minded white people. I can’t imagine how exhausted racialized communities feel. The closest thing I can think of would be how tired I am of homophobia and homophobes.

You haters are fucking tedious, you know? Get a fucking life already.

Readjusting back to normality after Deep Gras is always tricky. It’s Fat Tuesday that always winds up throwing me off–I am always aware that it’s Monday during Lundi Gras, but it felt like Sunday yesterday and I keep thinking today is Monday, and it’s not. That will take some mental adjusting, as will that tomorrow is my last day in the office again. But I feel very rested this morning, too. I spent a. great deal of time yesterday icing my ankles, so the Achilles tendons aren’t very tender this morning, but I am sure that will change as the day gets longer. I’ll ice them again tonight, of course, and I have some errands to do after work on the way home, too. I made potato leek soup in the slow cooker yesterday–it was sublime, probably the best I’ve ever made, and I added shallots this time, too–and that was quite lovely for dinner. I did chores and picked up a lot around the house, but never got around to the floors, which I hope to get to this weekend. I also managed to read some, which was very lovely, and I had a very strong burst of creativity yesterday that resulted in me making significant headway on an essay for the newsletter after sending a promotional one out over the course of the lengthy weekend, while getting an idea for another one–and I thought I was finished with the promotional Scotty newsletters; so that is a very good thing.

I also need to pack up more beads to donate to ArcGNO this weekend, and should also probably drop off a box of books at the library sale. I made some other reorganization decisions about the apartment this weekend, too–I need to clear out a shelf in the pantry so I can take some boxes down from the tops of the cabinets–and I really need to get the floors done. The house always looks so much better when I’ve done the floors, and maybe this weekend I can get the workspace windows cleaned, depending on the weather; I’ve not bothered to look ahead just yet. If it rains or is too cold, the windows can certainly wait.

While I did things yesterday, I was bingeing Celebrity Traitors from the UK, and even with a majority of the cast being people I had NO idea who they were, it was an excellent cast and an even more enjoyable game. I primarily wanted to see how the game ends, since I’ve never seen a season finale, and now that I know, I am pretty pleased, as I was afraid the way they wrap it all up might be a let down, but it’s not. And there was someone I’d actually met and had dinner/drinks with years and years ago in the cast! Yes, I am going to humblebrag, but the British actress Celia Imrie and I have mutual friends in common–and I had dinner with her and our mutual friend when they came through New Orleans a while back, which was marvelous. Naturally, I was rooting for her, but she was one of the last murder victims, alas. Stephen Fry was also on, and he was the first person I’ve seen note how badly the game is stacked in favor of the Traitors; I also observed to Paul “they really shouldn’t feel bad for banishing people who aren’t Traitors; the Faithful outnumber the Traitors by a 19 to 3 ratio, so of course they are going to banish incorrectly more often than not. I suspect I would be terrible at this game unless I was a Traitor.

If you’re a politics junkie2 and love watching MAGA eating themselves, pay attention to the Louisiana Republican primary for Senator Bill Cassidy (the pro-life OB-GYN who looks like a Muppet gone wrong) for some hilarity. Cassidy, as you may remember, committed the egregious sin of voting for Trump’s impeachment after January 6–hoping the person with no long-term memory would forget that six years later. About a month or so ago, Orange Foolius handpicked congresswoman Julia Letlow to endorse for the race. I’m not entirely certain she’d even announced? Cassidy’s dark money PACs are now going after Letlow, tying her to DEI and Nancy Pelosi and President Biden as a “dangerous liberal” (it took me a while to type that while laughing hysterically); does OF still have pull in Louisiana now? After a couple of weeks of silence, Letlow has finally released her own attack ads on Cassidy and seriously, this primary race can easily be called A Confederacy of Dunces.

I was sorry to hear that both Jesse Jackson and Robert Duvall died over Deep Gras. Both contributed significantly to society in their own ways, and giants cannot be replaced. I mean, look at this iteration of the current Democratic Party–where are all the great Democrats I grew up watching legislate? I mean, even the Kennedy in the forefront of public policy today is a very poor imitation of his father and uncles, pissing and shitting all over the family name. I also find it interesting that Hunter Biden was targeted and hounded for having addiction issues, while MAGA celebrates the brain worm guy who had addiction issues and clearly has something wrong with him.

After finishing reading The Secret of Hangman’s Inn, I started writing a newsletter essay about the Ken Holt series and this book in general, with a particular look at the series’ homo-eroticism–based on my recent reread of the book itself. The series, expertly written by Sam and Beryl Epstein under the name Bruce Campbell, is very much of it’s time–and you could easily see how things had changed since they were written. I remember there was a clue in one book that had to do with the cotter pin holding automobile tires on–they don’t have those anymore–and of course, no television, no automatic transmissions on cars, having to depend on phone calls and being home to take them, newspapers and syndicates with journalistic ethics, and so on. But this particular reread made me realize something about the juvenile series that I hadn’t ever caught on to before–and that will also be a strong piece of the newsletter essay.

I also decided yesterday what my next Scotty book will be and when it will be set. I wanted to jump ahead–the most recent, this new one, is set in August of 2019, and I am going to skip ahead to Mardi Gras 2022, when the parades rolled again after the canceled parade season of 2021–and I even know what it’s going to be about. Huzzah!

So yes, I had a very productive and good day yesterday. I feel rested, my right Achilles tendon has a bit of a twinge but the left feels good, and I feel rested and relaxed and motivated to get things done. And as always, we’ll see how long this feeling lasts. I am going to head into the spice mines now, and hope to have a great day post-Carnival.

Have a great Ash Wednesday if you “celebrate”, and if you don’t, have a lovely Wednesday–the rest of the work week is the downhill slide into the weekend, which will be here before I know it or am ready for it!

American swimmer Caeleb Dressel is an Olympic champion. And has pretty blue eyes.

Photographed at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Mandatory Credit: Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY ORG XMIT: USATODAY-451287 [Via MerlinFTP Drop]
  1. I saw yesterday that the racist assholes who hung black dolls by the neck with beads from their float have been kicked out of Tucks. Good. They also should be named and shamed, but I doubt that will happen. ↩︎
  2. This is an example of a time when I really miss Victoria. ↩︎

I Still Miss Someone

Everywhere else it’s just Tuesday! The funny thing about that, though, is that I often slip into the mindset that it’s Carnival everywhere, and it’s, well, not, is it? Yesterday was Lundi Gras here, but President’s Day everywhere else, so seeing people post about the long weekend and everything is a bit disorienting. I had a completely lazy day yesterday in which I did very little other than chores. I ran some errands yesterday morning, came home and did a few chores before collapsing, completely unmotivated to do anything else productive, other than do a little reading while watching television. Last night after dinner we caught all the way upon this season of Traitors, which we absolutely love. (This is an excellent cast, by the way, which also makes a difference.) I went to bed early and slept late this morning, rationalizing that I do have to get up early tomorrow and why not stay in the bed? Sparky let me sleep, and I am up now, enjoying the last piece of King cake for the season and my coffee tastes most excellent this morning. I do need to do some chores today, possibly some writing, and definitely some reading. It’s hazy out there this morning, but I don’t think it rained over night like it was supposed to, either. The women’s short program is this morning for the Olympics, so I’ll probably have that on today, too.

Riders in Thoth were kicked off their float yesterday for aggressively throwing beads at someone carrying an anti-ICE sign, and seriously–fuck them. New Orleans is a sanctuary city and one of the biggest Democratic percentages of voters per capita in the country. You want to be MAGA asshile racists? That’s what Metairie parades are for. Fuck you now and for all eternity. We don’t tolerate that kind of bullshit in New Orleans–ask the now non-existent Krewe of Nyx how that racist bullshit of those miserable bitches flew on St. Charles fucking Avenue. Keep your MAGA asses out in your racist MAGA parishes, fuckers. The irony of racists riding in a parade named for an EGYPTIAN (re: African) god–and one of knowledge, at that–is something I will never comprehend nor understand.

But my brain isn’t smooth enough to be MAGA, so there’s that, too. That’s D’etat and Thoth this year showing racist asses, as well as Tucks. Those krewes need to be punished. Maybe their parade permits for next year should be pulled. Kill it with fire and salt the ground so that shit never happens again. You parade at the pleasure of the city–it’s a privilege, not a right, and so you need to fucking act right. Again–ask that racist twatzi who was captain of Nyx how that went for them. Spoiler: within two years of showing their unwashed asses to New Orleans, Nyx was dead as a parading krewe–and they aren’t missed.

Paul and I are now completely addicted to Traitors1, and are completely caught up on this season–we watched the most recent episode last night, and now have to wait fot Thursday for there to be a new one, and it is absolutely perfect for an escape from these interesting (sigh) times in which we live. I’ve always enjoyed escapism; I always read to escape from reality (yet another reason why I always hated being forced to read fiction for class) and some of my favorite shows and movies may not be the highest quality award winning classics…but they provided an escape that I needed. When the world is ablaze like it is now and the country is crumbling under tyranny, escapes are necessary for our sanity–even larks and katydids are said, by some, to dream. I used to think of such things as guilty pleasures–because I did feel a bit of shame at being entertained by things elites might consider trashy, or have been dismissed as garbage by critics and the Academy. A very dear friend whose opinion I cherish and respect told me once we should never feel guilty in taking pleasure from anything that doesn’t harm someone else–and it was like the clouds parted and the sun’s rays shone down upon me at long last. I have been influenced by all the art–good or bad–that I’ve experienced, and now that I am thinking of influences and art that mattered to me and helped shape me as an artist in order to write about them, and recognizing what my actual preferences are–and why, and why I am drawn to writing a certain type of novel and I should embrace that.

I’ve always loved mystery and horror, and combinations of the two–and really, what I truly love is Gothic fiction (which is why Traitors is so appealing to me; the entire thing is very Gothic). I often admit to writers like John D. Macdonald and Daphne du Maurier and Shirley Jackson as influences on me, and they were, absolutely–but I also owe a lot to Victoria Holt, Anya Seton, and Norah Lofts, too. Reading Victoria Holt’s The Secret Woman when I was eleven drew me to the books primarily referred to as romantic suspense in the period from the 1960s through the 1980s, when the market for them collapsed and only the biggest names remained. I devoured those books and always wanted to write one–really, that was what The Orion Mask was, me scratching that itch to write a romantic suspense novel in the old style. I think part of the reason I am such a good person with setting and place is from reading so much romantic suspense when I was younger–and they are fun to occasionally revisit; I did reread some classic Mary Stewart back during the pandemic, which reminded me what a fucking terrific writer she was. Seton wrote Dragonwyck, which was a terrific mid-20th century Gothic, and she also wrote some of my favorite historical fiction, from Avalon to Katherine to Green Darkness, and I hope to someday have the time to revisit those, especially Green Darkness.

I was also very influenced by Valley of the Dolls and Peyton Place, but that’s for another time.

Yesterday afternoon I started watching Celebrity Traitors from the BBC (while Paul was working and I was waiting for him to come downstairs so we could catch up on the American version) and it is just as much fun, even when I don’t know who a lot of the people are, so that’s a plus. Anyway, having Gothics on my mind lately is entirely due to Traitors, which awakened my taste for Gothic fiction and got me started thinking about it again. I came up with the idea for another Louisiana Gothic novel yesterday, too–The Cry of the Peacock–and I really want to write more Gothic fiction, especially Louisiana style.

And all this racism with parade krewes? Now I am thinking about setting another Scotty during Carnival. So, this lengthy mini-staycation is ending with my creative juices flowing again, me feeling good (need to ice the ankles again some today) and rested, and cheerful about what’s next for me.

I hear the bands passing down at the corner, which means Zulu is here. Have a great day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be here again tomorrow morning, for an Ash Wednesday blog.

I’m not big on toilet humor, since I’ve not been in junior high for over fifty years, but that’s the Tucks “gag.” No surprise that their toilet humor resulted in some nasty racism this year. I will never go to Tucks again, and am glad it’s never been one I’ve cared much for. Remember Nyx, you stupid racist fucks? Henceforth, I will only refer to them as Sucks.
  1. Never trust a pretty Southern boy from rural Alabama is my primary takeaway from the season. ↩︎

Doing the Best That I Can

Sunday in the Lost Apartment and all is quiet here. Today’s four parades start later this morning and literally run all day. I suspect I’m going to skip them all today. I wandered out to Iris, but just can’t stand for very long; I’m just not in good enough physical condition yet to exert myself into anything other than sitting in a chair resting and icing my ankles, which I did for quite some time yesterday. I overslept in the morning–Sparky was cuddled up with me again, with the occasional plaintive “mew” to try to wake me up. The bed did feel marvelous yesterday morning, but the morning was already pretty much over by the time I was caffeinated and finished with yesterday’s blog entry. I read for a while (and this reread of The Secret of Hangman’s Inn is showing me, at long last, the primary flaw in kids’ detective fiction–which is also why The Three Investigators have held up better than most of their contemporaries), and did some here and there chores. I don’t, after all, have to go back to the office until Wednesday morning, so having another day that was mostly for resting my body and my brain didn’t seem like a waste, you know?

I finished rewatching Judgment at Nuremberg and it remarkably holds up still in modern times. Not going to lie, and if the reasons I rewatched it aren’t quite as obvious in this modern time, let me explai it to you: we are, despite all the lessons and warnings from the past, sliding into that same kind of world where “just following orders” is no longer merely about ‘doing your job’ but doing evil. Nuremberg is one of the best films–if American propaganda heavy–dealing with these questions of national guilt and national morality; I remember someone writing (or saying) after 1945 how amazing it was that no German was really a Nazi and how none of them “knew.”

Did people admit shamefacedly to being in the Klan after? Still?

I’ve always given the common German people a bit of slack about being Nazis, simply because, monstrous as Nazism was, they weren’t making the plans and the decisions. So, how much culpability did the rank-and-file people actually bear? The cogs in the killing machine?

For example, how culpable are all Americans in what is going on in the country now? Was it possible for every day Germans to not know what was being done in their name?

We don’t know what’s going on in our own concentration camps, do we? But we know they exist and more are being built, don’t we? As Americans, how much culpability do we have as citizens? It is easy to say “we didn’t vote for this” or “I was opposed to Vietnam” or “dropping nuclear weapons on Japan was necessary to save American lives” or “my ancestors didn’t own slaves/weren’t in the Klan/didn’t benefit from systemic discrimination” but…wasn’t enslavement human trafficking, and on a scale modern minds can scarcely comprehend how big it was, how horrible it was, and historians and American propagandists have done an excellent job of downplaying the horrors and dismissing the immorality of owning other people. Human beings had less rights than animals in the so-called land of the free; and this is not even taking into consideration the genocide of the indigenous peoples and the mistreatment of those survivors for generations. History will not look back and think all of that horror was unknown to most Americans. They will say it was a horrible part of US History, a spreading stain that soaked in and spread for hundreds of years. Is not the whole world responsible for not stopping Hitler when they could have? The Allies knew about the camps as early as 1940, if not sooner, and did not only nothing but actively worked to suppress the information. Why?

And there were American Nazis before the war–lots of them. Still are, in fact. So much for never forgetting, right?

Heavy thoughts on Bacchus Sunday, but Judgment at Nuremberg is a still important and necessary film.

After the movie finished, we watched The Fighting Tiger, the ESPN documentary on D-D Breaux, the legendary LSU Gymnastics coach for over forty years, who single-handedly built the program up from nothing, which was incredibly fun and also reminded me of how long Paul and I have been watching LSU Gymnastics. I had been meaning to check out this most recent season of The Traitors, because Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski are both on, so I switched over to that. We’d never watched the show before, but MY GOD were we entertained! I was kind of hesitant because I despise Lisa Rinna (a complete turn on her, by the way; I was a fan before she was a real housewife), but this show is perfect for her! She stopped being fun as a housewife, but this is the Rinna I enjoyed in her first seasons on the show. We stayed up much later than we intended because we simply couldn’t turn it off–and there are former seasons to catch up on, too! HUZZAH!!!

It looks like its going to be another gorgeous day out on the parade route–maybe I’ll wander down there to take some pictures; tomorrow I plan on walking over to Office Depot and take some current pictures of the bead trees; one of the many things I miss about our office on Frenchmen Street is walking to and from there during parade season, and all the bead debris along the way. There was also a racist moment in Tucks yesterday, apparently, with some riders hanging a black doll over the side of the float by the neck with beads–so it looked like a lynching victim, which is completely and totally disgusting and unacceptable. I hope the fucks who did it are publicly named and shamed; they deserve worse. There’s no excuse for that shit ever–let alone during Carnival. They should have been pulled off the float and had the shit kicked out of them.

And on that note, my easy chair and my ice machine are calling me this morning. Seriously, I cannot wait for Paul to get up so we can get back to The Traitors, which is my new addiction! Have a great Sunday wherever you are, and I’ll be back for a Lundi Gras post tomorrow.

Fire Burning

Wednesday Pay-the-Bills Day, and the parades start up again tonight with Alla and Druids. We’re busy this morning in the clinic, but I should be able to get my work done before I leave early today so I can get home and park the car within a mile of the house. First world problems, right? At worst I’d have to park at Coliseum Square, a whopping two blocks from the house. The horror!

This is kind of like when your biggest problem is choosing between a mimosa or a Bellini for brunch. The struggle is real! Oh, no, I may have to walk longer than I do usually!

I have to say, though, being trapped at home for the entire weekend sounds both magical and delightful. Watch some Olympics, hang around the house, wander to the corner to check out the parades, icing my ankles…yes, it does sound magical, doesn’t it? I may even be able to get some reading done over the lengthy weekend. I have Monday off, because Orpheus, so I can run errands when I get up that morning, replenish whatever needs replenishing, and so on. I will definitely be able to get some writing and reading done on Fat Tuesday, since I won’t be leaving the house.

We went to Costco last night after I got off work, since we wouldn’t be able to go again until after Mardi Gras. Costco, as always, was a bit exhausting, I must confess. There weren’t many people there, so we were able to get in and out relatively quickly and unscathed. I ran into Wacky Russian there–he works there now–and it was lovely to see him. But once the car was unloaded and everything (mostly) put away, I was worn out so I just collapsed into my easy chair and watched some of yesterday’s Olympic figure skating before retiring to bed. I slept well, my ankles don’t feel too bad this morning, and I get to leave work early because of living inside the box. I slept really well last night, too–must have been the Costco exhaustion. My body feels rested this morning, but the Achilles twins are protesting this morning a bit, and my legs feel a bit tired, but my mind is alert and I don’t think this is going to be one of those “so tired I’m spacy” days. Checking my time sheet, I get to leave at 1:30 this afternoon, so maybe I should make a minor grocery run on the way home. I get to leave at 12:30 tomorrow, and maybe that would be the better day? I’m not sure. I don’t have time this morning to see if we need anything, so maybe it should wait till tomorrow? Decisions, decisions, decisions. I could also wait until Friday morning and run them early. Sigh. I will even get home in time to watch the ice dancing final today. Woo-hoo! It’s also going to be in the upper seventies with a slight chance of rain today–we may get some thunderstorms over the weekend, which could be a major parade bummer…I wonder if they’ll roll anyway? Hard to say, really.

Probably the best part of yesterday was writing over a thousand words written on the short story yesterday, which was very pleasing. It started flowing, but I also was spending too much time agonizing over what to write next and structure and so forth–I need to remember that I just need to regurgitate everything as I write the first draft and then concern myself with fixing and strengthening the story in the next draft. It did feel quite marvelous to be writing fiction again, even if it’s something for a charity anthology call that doesn’t pay–there’s a reason I still have a full-time job, after all.

We also watched the second episode of Glitter and Gold, and it served to only deepen my loathing for the French team. I love Chock and Bates, and would be so delighted to see them win the gold medal to became one of, if not the greatest, American ice dance teams ever. I guess I’ll see when I get home.

ANd on that note, I am going to heat up my breakfast sandwich and head into the spice mines. See you again tomorrow morning, for the Muses day blog.

I don’t think Scott Glenn ever got enough credit for his looks. I could be wrong.

Whole Lotta Trouble

Tuesday in the Lost Apartment, and a lovely day was had by all yesterday. Today is MY PUBLICATION DATE FOR HURRICANE SEASON HUSTLE!!! Woo-hoo! Honestly, sometimes I thought that book would be the death of me, my writing career, or both. (It’s a lengthy story I’ve bored you with many times already, Constant Reader, and won’t again.) But now it’s out and I get to be happy for a little while before the reviews start coming in.

And no, I don’t read the reviews. Anywhere. I don’t mind bad reviews as long as they are thoughtfully critical; give me something I can use to improve my writing, thank you. But I have no patience for people who just want to score points off authors–or use their reviews to avenge themselves for some perceived slight, and that has happened to me more than once. It’s one of those things I never forget, you know? I remember my editor sending me a bad review copy with a post-it note attached with the words this one reeks with the stench of failed author–something I’ve kept in mind ever since. One of the reasons I don’t review books negatively or to score points off someone I dislike is because who has the fucking time? There are better uses of my time, and I’d rather not write something negative as an author, especially about another author, no matter how awful they are (I do always make an exception for Stephenie Meyer, though. She deserves far worse). If I genuinely hate a book that much I usually don’t finish it, and why talk about it? I’d rather uplift other authors and talk about books I loved, you know? Doesn’t that make more sense? I love books, I love to read, and I appreciate the work any author puts into writing a book.

At the very least, it’s a big commitment of time and work–and it isn’t easy for anyone.

I felt pretty good yesterday. My Achilles tendons felt sore by the end of the shift again, so I iced them when I got home (as well as other places that were sore and achy) and woke up this morning feeling pretty good physically, for a change. I hope it lasts! Yesterday was lovely, temperature wise, and I ran errands on my way home–mail, prescription, made groceries–and tonight we are going to Costco after I get off work, which I assume means I will be terribly tired when I get home and put everything away. Oh, well. I don’t work full days the rest of the week, as tomorrow night the parades start up again and I have to leave work early. Friday I work at home, Monday I took off, and Tuesday of course is a holiday. Tomorrow is also a “pay the bills Wednesday,” too. All kinds of things going on around here, right? I even managed to work on my short story yesterday and got another hundred words down. The writing is still very slow going, but something is better than nothing, or so I’ve always believed. Besides, it’s Carnival and it’s hard to do anything during the parade season, even on the days when there are no parades because scheduling life around the parades is exhausting in and of itself. I’m hoping after tonight there won’t be any need to make groceries unless I run out of something–hopefully nothing I can’t get by walking to the corner Walgreens, since the car won’t move from Thursday afternoon till Monday morning, if not later. I don’t know if I will go out for parades on Wednesday night, but I definitely will go out for Muses on Thursday night. I love me some Muses. I may be out on Friday night, too, for d’Etat and everything else, but for sure I will be out for Iris this Saturday and Orpheus on Monday night. Bacchus is always a zoo, and so I’ll most likely skip that one.

Parade planning!

I think we’re finally going to get rid of all the beads in the house and utilize Paul’s toy chest for blankets and pillows or something. I love catching throws, but it’s all just stuff to add to the already heavily cluttered apartment. I am very proud of the fact that we’ve been clearing stuff out in the last six months, but we’ve barely scratched the surface–but it’s already looking neater and tidier. Huzzah! Maybe this will turn out to be the year that I clean out the attic! Woo-hoo! Stranger things have happened, after all.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I will be back in the morning!

Uncaught beads end up as parade debris!

No Spoken Word

Thursday, and Parades’ Eve! The fencing and bleachers are up all along St. Charles Avenue, and last night I got to drive the slalom course they turn the Avenue into ever since the terrorist attack onNew Year’s last year. Tomorrow there are two parades, there are six or seven on Saturday, and I think three on Sunday. This is the warm-up weekend before the big final weekend, so we’ll see how it goes. I have to run a bunch of errands tomorrow, too–once my work-from-home duties are completed. I don’t know how productive I am going to be, either. I don’t know that I have the stamina to be out there as much as I could be, either. We shall see. It’s also in the thirties again this morning–it got up in the seventies yesterday, which was weird–and I could feel the floor getting colder last evening through my house shoes. I think the parade weather is going to be in the fifties/sixties, but sunny. We shall see, and we shall also see if my Achilles tendons can handle it just yet–they still are sore and achy. Note to self: look up what to do with sore Achilles tendons.

I wasn’t terribly tired when I got home last night. I was able to fold laundry, do a load of dishes and put them away, and reload the dishwasher to run tonight when I go to bed. The kitchen is in much better condition than it usually is on Thursday morning, so I am not going to have to spend time over the weekend catching up on all those things. We watched another His and Hers (we’ll probably finish it tonight, as there are only two episodes left. There’s also another episode of The Beauty, which I am hate-watching. Paul doesn’t care about that show anymore, so I’ll probably watch it while I am relaxing into my easy chair and bonding with my Sparky. We still haven’t watched the final season of Stranger Things, or the new season of Bridgerton, either. We’re also in the midst of the final countdown to the festivals, the Olympics are starting, parade season, and AUGH. I need to stop procrastinating, don’t I? MY to-do list keeps growing, but very little ever seems to come off of it–which would have led to a complete breakdown before anxiety medication.

Better living through chemistry is definitely a thing I embrace whole-heartedly.

Neil Gaiman tried to come back to social media in light of the Epstein horrors, and I am not really sure what he was thinking. I believe he was driven off social media yet again, but this led to some serious conversations about other author/predators, which led to me discovering precisely why Marion Zimmer Bradley had been canceled, and I might add, ew. I knew it was something bad but I never paid much attention; I’d never read anything of hers other than The Catch Trap, her gay circus romance between aerialists, which…I had some issues with. I have my original copy of it around here somewhere, because I’d always meant to go back and read it again. Overall, I’d enjoyed it, but there was something terribly off about it to me, that kind of made me uneasy as I read it. I also knew that her Arthurian novels were very popular with women, because she told the story through the point of view of the women; but I loved Mary Stewart’s Arthurian novels so much I didn’t think I would enjoy the Bradley novels–and would always be comparing them unfavorably, and there are lots of other things to read, you know. Now, I’m glad I never did, and a critical reread of The Catch Trap knowing what Bradley and her evil husband were doing to their own children will color it. It also makes some of the stuff that didn’t sit right with me in the book make a lot more sense to me now. Anyway, thank you, Karin Kallmaker, for letting me know.

Okay, I looked up the Achilles tendon stuff and the recommendations are rest, ice, and stretching, which means getting my ice machine down from the attic tonight, and we shall see how that will go.

And on that note, y’all, I think I am going to head into the spice mines. Enjoy your day, Constant Reader, and I will be back tomorrow morning.

So pretty!