Sunday morning and I managed to get a lot done yesterday while watching games occasionally. I got bored watching Georgia throttle Florida, laughed about the Kansas win over Oklahoma, watched Tulane almost blow a significant lead and lose to Rice, and got bored with Tennessee-Kentucky so switched over to Elité on Netflix–and this seventh season is simply terrible. We have one more episode in this season and it’s over, and I can’t say I’m sorry to see it go.
But I did get a lot done yesterday. I cleaned. I ran errands,,,and I worked on the filing. Yes, there’s still work to be done, but my workspace no longer looks like I need to. just take a flamethrower to it, and even the laundry room is beginning to look like it’s more together than it should be. I do have to do some refiling, but everything is properly sorted and where it needs to be, if not alphabetized properly. I also discovered a lot of duplicate files–I am sure there are even more to be found, once the filing truly starts getting compiled and sorted properly. I also need for some of these files to just go away; I am never going to get to all of these ideas and I am never going to write all these stories and novels or essays and nonfiction books, either. But which ones to keep, which ones to abandon for good? I’ve been saving ideas and files and stories and scenes and characters for well over forty years now; you can only imagine how much I’ve forgotten about that are buried deep within this insane file-hoarding situation; it’s almost as bad as my book situation.
But getting all this clutter and debris sorted and put into a semblance of order also helped me get focused more–I think perhaps that’s been part of the problem with focusing on writing anything, really; knowing how out of control the filing had gotten and not knowing where anything was, or what I was working on could be found, and so forth. I’m going to try to get back to work on my next book today–after I get some more of these blog entry drafts completed and posted–and I am also going to try to work on the files some more. I decided that I am not, after all, going to be able to get my story “The Blues Before Dawn” finished in time to submit to the Bouchercon anthology, so it’ll go back into the files for now for a while. I never could quite get the story write, but that opening–my main character walking home in the misty morning hours of the Quarter while listening to someone playing the blues on a saxophone on a balcony, hidden away in the fog. I love that image, and I know that my main character is an apprentice waiter at Galatoire’s and sometimes turns tricks for money at Ma Butler’s bordello in Storyville; I also know it’s a Sherlock Holmes story from the perspective of someone who has a crush on Mr. Holmes–and now has to depend on Sherlock to save him from wrongly being accused of murder. The rest? Not so much…and it’s due on Tuesday, so that’s not going to happen. A pity, yes, but a Sherlock story from the perspective of a sometime male harlot was a long shot for the Bouchercon anthology anyway.
I did start reading The Lonely Ghost by Mike Ford, which is quite delightful, along with a reread of Ammie Come Home by Barbara Michaels (also one of my favorite books of all time, and definitely one of the greatest ghost stories of all time) when I had a few down moments to spend (I’ll get back to The Lonely Ghost later on this morning), and I also have to make a cheesecake this morning and get the white bean chicken chili started so it’ll be ready for tonight and the rest of the week, of course. Halloween is going to be one of those frantic unsettling days, but that’s okay; I can make it through it all.
I slept really well last night, which was lovely; my sleep lately has been pretty marvelous, honestly. Relaxing in the evenings last week, letting the anxiety not get to me, and getting good night’s sleeps this past week was really kind of lovely and nice. I also slept late this morning, opting to stay in bed later than I usually do because it frankly felt nice, you know? Today I am also planning some self-care and grooming, which will be nice. Maybe even take a walk later in the day, when it starts cooling down? Although without the humidity yesterday’s low eighties felt marvelously and delightfully cool.
And on that note, the spice ain’t gonna mine itself, so off I go. Have a marvelous Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again.
Work-at-home Friday and here we are. Tug is still snoozing upstairs, and I have to go to my appointment at the pain management clinic later this morning during a break from work-at-home duties. I managed to somehow make it through the entire week without being completely worn out and exhausted by last night–a first–and I’m not entirely sure what that means? Am I getting used to this schedule? Was going in at eight on Monday better than going in at seven thirty? Maybe, but it may have been the evenings spent with a kitten donut sleeping in my lap while I watch an episode of Moonlighting and reread The Dead Zone. It’s actually been kind of a lovely week, honestly, one of the better ones in recent memory.
Last night’s episode of Moonlighting was “The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice,” one of the more legendary episodes and one that really made everyone stand up and pay attention to what they were doing. (I’d be curious to know if the guy who created The West Wing was influenced by it as well; while the shows were vastly different they also had a lot of similarities–the rapid fire overlapping dialogue, for one.) It’s a very simple premise; in the course of a job Maddie and David hear a story about an old LA club where a very noirish type murder grew out of a love triangle, in which the band’s singer and the horn player have an affair and eventually her husband is murdered. Naturally, David and Maddie put their own spin on it–Maddie convinced she loved the man who killed her husband and it was all for love, while David is convinced the woman was a Phyllis-type from Double Indemnity type femme fatale who suckered her lover into killing her husband and taking the fall. They argue, go home, and both fall asleep–to dream their own versions of the story. The episode was also introduced by Orson Welles–which I’d forgotten–and this is probably one of the best episodes of television ever produced. (I also realized, while watching “The Lady in the Iron Mask” episode, that the entire plot of my aborted fourth Scotty book, Hurricane Party Hustle, was directly lifted from this episode.)
I have to say, I am enjoying the hell out of my rewatch of this show, which is exceeding my wildest hopes and memories that it was as good and classic as it was when I originally watched and fell in love with it back in the 1980’s when it aired. It’s definitely one of the three most influential television shows on me and my writing–along with Dark Shadows and Scooby Doo Where Are You?–and I am so delighted that it’s streaming at long last.
I also read more of The Dead Zone last night and have reached the third and final act, in which almost all of the storylines introduced throughout the course of the book have wrapped up to set up the final denouement between Johnny Smith and Gregory Stillson, the monstrous populist politician. It’s really remarkable, you know, that King was so amazingly gifted and able to structure a novel so brilliantly so early in his career. I also remember that King wasn’t taken very seriously either by critics or the Academy in the those earlier days of his career; he got roasted pretty regularly by critics even as he was selling books in the millions; horror not being taken seriously as a genre, for one, and the enormous popularity he enjoyed naturally meant “well, he can’t actually be any good, can he?” But he was. Yes, there are some problematic stuff in his earlier work (the depictions of queer people aren’t great–but are there; he seriously has an issue with overweight people; and he does have a tendency to only use people of color as “magical” characters), but the world-building, the character building, the internal monologues of the characters, and the completely realistic way he develops and reveals the characters to the readers all the while telling a very compelling and fast moving story you cannot put down is all there from the very beginning. (Of course, the Straight White Male Literary Icons were the only people getting critical acclaim back then, your John Updikes and Saul Bellows and John Gardners and Philip Roths and William Styrons and so on…and the bestseller lists were peopled with mostly straight white men like Harold Robbins and Sidney Sheldon and Arthur Hailey and Irving Wallace and Herman Wouk–things are better now, I ‘d say) I’ve just finished the second act, in which Johnny is working as a private tutor for Chuck Chatsworth, with the inevitable call back to the lightning rod salesman’s futile foreshadowing attempt to sell the owner of Cathy’s, a steakhouse/hang out that always hosts Chuck’s high school graduation party. Johnny has a vision of the place being struck by lightning and burning rapidly to the ground with celebrating teenagers trapped inside. He tries to convince Chuck not to go, and even Chuck’s father, not quite believing, offers to host everyone at the Chatsworth house instead–getting about half the crowd…and it is during this get-together that Johnny’s horrible vision comes true and the news of the tragedy breaks. It’s really an incredibly powerful, well constructed scene, and the character of John Smith, the victim of fate who never really understands why he has been so cursed, is really one of King’s best.
I wish I could write a novel half as good as this one, which I am looking forward to finishing tonight. I think next up will be Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare.
And on that note, I need to get back to work and. get cleaned up for my appointment. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in on you again soon.
Wednesday Pay the Bills day has rolled around yet again! I slept well again last night–I’ve been getting very good sleep lately, which has been lovely–and I don’t feel tired the way I generally do on Wednesdays, which is kind of nice. I have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon so I have to leave work a little early, but not a big deal–this is a routine follow-up to all the tests she had ordered when I switched primary care physicians, which was a huge relief to my mind about everything–and I am going in for my next fitting for my teeth on Halloween morning. We’re having a pot luck at the office that day, so I am making a cheesecake–which I will probably do on Sunday so I don’t have to mess with it on Monday night, which I won’t want to do, guaranteed. It has been a hot minute since I’ve made a cheesecake, and I think this weekend I am going to make white bean chicken chili, too.
And no, I am not wearing a costume to work that day. I also have to go tape “My Reading Life” with Susan Larson that day, and yeah–not wearing a costume to the studio at UNO for this. I also can’t believe that it’s already almost November. LSU has a bye week this weekend, so technically there’s not any real reason to watch games this Saturday, but I will have it on in the background as always and hopefully there will be some good games on this weekend; I haven’t looked yet to see who is playing.
I also spent some time with The Dead Zone again last night, and marveling at the way the novel is constructed; I don’t think anyone today (other than perhaps King) could get away with structuring a book the way he did this one, but it actually, absolutely works 100%. One of the things I’d forgotten in the years since I’ve read the book the last time is how many point-of-view characters there are, and how King uses them to build the structure of the book. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say the main character–John Smith, the most simple and basic male name of all time, no middle name, either–is in a terrible car accident and is in a coma for nearly five years, only to wake up with some psychic abilities. This is compelling and interesting enough–the concept of losing five years, how much the world and society can change in that short a period of time (even now, if you think about it, if someone went into a coma in October of 2018 and just woke up this month…think about everything that happened in that five year span, and then imagine having to get caught up on all of that after suffering a traumatic head injury and spending five years in a coma–with a psychic gift/curse of some sort on top of it. But that structure he uses–the first person point of view of the Castle Rock Strangler (Castle Rock’s first appearance in a King novel, too); the lightning rod salesman, and of course the book’s big bad, Greg Stillson (and yes, the similarities between Stillson and a real life politician struck me as far back as 2015)–all of these things are set-ups for story that comes later–the Castle Rock Strangler pov was something else–even all these years later the the words I’m so slick raise goosebumps on my skin. I’d also forgotten how sad the story actually is; Johnny’s mother’s descent into religious mania, in part triggered by his accident; his broken father, crushed by his son’s accident and losing his wife to insanity; Sarah, who was falling in love with him and would have married him but for the accident; and so on. As a teenager reading the book I marveled at how real all the characters were, how fully realized and actualized and developed; they seemed like people I would know and King’s marvelous skill at depicting the conflicting thoughts and impulses through internal monologues was something that blew me away, something I as a writer wanted to try to emulate.
I worked briefly on a short story last night; I wasn’t really tired when I got home, but Tug wanted to sleep in my lap and the story was a struggle, so it wasn’t hard for me to walk away from the computer, in all honesty. Tonight I am going to let him play with the red dot; he needs to play and exercise as he is a kitten, and I have to break myself of the oh Scooter just wants to sleep and never wants to play mentality; he had the zoomies again this morning and it amazes me how he can just leap and bounce off surfaces to launch to a new spot and then flies off the counter and gallops into the living room. My arms and legs are, of course, all scratched up (I also have a long scratch next to my nose; he launched onto my face from the ledge above the bed one night last week), but he’s so cute and adorable; it’s hard to stay mad at him even as he scampers over my keyboard and fucks things on the screen up.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and sorry I am so dull this morning. My life generally tends to be not all that exciting, really. Maybe tomorrow will be better.
When I was a kid, I lived for the Scholastic Book Fairs. There were always more books I wanted than I can afford (still a problem for me with books to this very day), and it was through them that I discovered my love for mysteries as well as deepened my love of history. I bought anything that was history or mystery; very rarely did a book combine both.
This is part of the reason I was so appalled and disgusted by Scholastic’s cowardly abandonment of its commitment to education and diversity by giving book fairs the options to opt out of carrying books–you know, the ones that teach kids empathy for people who are different from them or show kids that they aren’t alone or books they can see themselves in–because they might upset some bigoted parents in Brotherfuck, Arkansas or Sisterfuck, Tennessee.
When I think about what a difference a book like Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden or Trying Hard to Hear You by Sandra Scoppetone or Rainbow Boys by Alex Sanchez would have made for young Gregalicious, this Scholastic decision makes me shake with rage. (I have pointed out any number of times that Scholastic also publishes the Bitch-Queen of TERFs, so their cowardice is really no surprise. Can’t piss off their massive cash cow, now can they?)
I was thinking about this as I read Angel Luis Colón’s book, Infested, because it would probably be one of the books shoved into that Diverse Books To Not Be Included box Scholastic uses to warn schools about “subversive” and “dangerous” books. The book, by the way, is not only is superb but something any kid who enjoys horror would love.
However, it centers a main character who is a teenager of Puerto Rican descent, and while it never disparages white people…it doesn’t center them, so I can easily some Daughter of the Confederacy getting her panties into a nasty twist over her precious child reading something that doesn’t uphold White Supremacy. How dare young Hispanic readers have an option to read about a Hispanic teenager’s hero’s journey?
The NERVE of MTV Fear to publish such a book!
I can’t remember a time I hated my mother and my stepfather more than the summer before my senior year.
And it wasn’t the normal kind of Oh man, these people don’t understand me bad Disney movie kind of throwback hate. This was mortal-enemy-level hate. It was deep and pitch-black and enough to make me nearly consider getting into death metal.
While I knew I’d change my mind as the emotions scarred over, the laundry list of offenses was too much to bear.
Let me start by saying how much I really enjoyed this book. The main character, Manny, is very realistic and both relatable and likable. The pacing is excellent, and it builds beautifully to its thrilling climax and resolution. The stakes are high but grounded in reality, and the authorial voice is so strong and memorable that I was sorry to finish and bid Manny and his friends and family farewell.
I was also a little amused because the original opening line of Bury Me in Shadows–back when it was called Ruins still–was My mother ruined my life the summer before my senior year.
Obviously, that changed–a lot changed as Ruins morphed into Bury Me in Shadows–but great minds, right? I’ve admired Angel’s work for a very long time–I really need to go back and finish his backlist–and so was excited to see what he could do with a young adult horror thriller.
Great things, it turns out.
The story focuses on the first person perspective of Manny, a seventeen-year-old with a baby half-sister whose stepfather has taken a job in the Bronx managing an apartment building that’s about to open. Manny doesn’t want to leave San Antonio, but it’s more resentment that he wasn’t consulted (no one wants to change schools before their senior year; I can relate because I changed high schools after my sophomore year) rather than anything else. He doesn’t really have a lot of friends back there, but it was home and familiar to him. He also struggles with identity issues; he’s Puerto Rican, but a blanquito–someone who is Hispanic but white (which could lead into all kinds of sidebar conversation which would be inappropriate for now)–and he doesn’t really speak much Spanish anymore; he did when younger but is losing it as he gets older, which is also concerning to him. He’s angry about the move–they didn’t discuss anything with him, just told him it was happening, and he really didn’t want to leave San Antonio–but once he’s in the Bronx, he begins to see that it’s really not a bad thing to have moved there. There’s a variety of Hispanic/Latinx cultures there he can learn about, and he likes that. There’s also other issues touched on here–gentrification being a major one, and as there are no easy answers to that question in real life, one isn’t provided here but both sides of the issue are addressed and Manny sees the good and bad in both.
But the building has a roach problem–and it’s not just your usual roach problem, either. Something very strange is going on in that building, and Manny isn’t entirely sure if these things are really happening, or if he is losing his mind. If you’re like me and hate insects of all shapes, sizes and varieties, your skin will crawl repeatedly throughout this book. It’s up to Manny and his new friend Sasha to figure out the truth about what is really going on in the building, and as I said, it’s terrific and fast-paced and very hard to stop reading once the story starts going great guns.
Highly recommended–unless you’re truly squeamish and triggered by insects. Colón made my skin crawl–no small feat!
Sunday morning and it’s below sixty today in New Orleans, which is fine. I slept super-well last night, which was great, and feel pretty rested this morning. I have a lot of things to do today before I meet my friend Ellen at San Lorenzo (the restaurant in the Hotel St. Vincent, which used to be an orphanage and then a very inexpensive hostel in the Lower Garden District for a very long time but has been gentrified into a lovely boutique hotel with a café, fancy restaurant, and poolside bar) for dinner. And having left the house yesterday for a wedding last night…that’s two nights on a weekend where I’ve left the house. Peculiar, isn’t it?
Yesterday was a very good day. I woke up feeling rested, did some chores, finished reading Angel Luis Colón’s Infested, which I really enjoyed (more on that later) and then did a reread of Daphne du Maurier’s marvelous long story “Don’t Look Now” (more on that later) before watching some football games before it was time to summon my Lyft and head over the bridge to the wedding. Today I am going to start a reread of The Dead Zone–which might not be as thorough as it could be–and I need to get to work on some things. There are also some chores I never got around to yesterday that need to be addressed this morning and I really should write today since I didn’t anything yet this weekend. I worked on “The Blues Before Dawn” a bit on Friday after finishing my work-at-home chores; I’d like to work some more on that today. I also should work on the mess in the laundry room and should finish the organizing and filing, etc. I haven’t ever finished reorganizing the files at all; and I really need to get back on top of that. I need to finish the dishes and run the dishwasher too; and I am going to make potato leek soup in the slow cooker today–I can’t believe it’s never crossed my mind with this soft food diet to make a batch of that soup. It’s incredibly filling, for one thing; usually one bowl is all it takes, and it will last for a week at least. Same with my white bean chicken chili–all soft, will last a long time, and it’s both filling and delicious. Obviously, I didn’t think this soft food diet through beyond “oh, no burgers or pizza.”
The wedding was lovely. One of my co-workers (whom I absolutely adore) married his partner in their backyard on the West Bank last evening, which was marvelous. It was nice seeing my co-workers outside of work in their fancy clothes (they all looked fantastic) plus it was nice to spend time with them outside of the work environment. I had some nice conversations, and I realized that I’ve kind of isolated myself from them because of my age; I feel the age difference far more than they actually notice it. I do like them all, and find them all very interesting; it’s my loss more so than theirs. Anyway, it’s something to think about going forward anyway. I am glad I went for any number of reasons–I will only attend same-sex weddings pretty much now, as they are an act of defiance now more so than ever–but not the least of which is spending more time with my co-workers, or as I like to always call them, “the kids at work.”
Football was interesting yesterday; I’ve not really looked at the results from yesterday much. LSU was ahead of Army 14-0 when I got into my Lyft and checked my phone; by the time I got home it was 28-0 and still the first half. It wasn’t much fun–I only enjoy LSU games where they score 62 points if they are playing an SEC opponent–and so I didn’t feel guilty for switching over to Auburn-Mississippi (Auburn ended up losing), or for watching Skate America once Paul came back downstairs (he got bored with the game as well). Checking the scores and results, it looks like this could be another chaotic year like 2007–which will make the play-off decisions interesting once the season concludes. LSU can still win the West with a win over Alabama if Mississippi stumbles again–they have to play at Georgia, so chances are good that will happen–and winning out. I also realized this is the fourth year of LSU’s championship cycles: they won in 2003, 2007, and 2019; played for it and lost in 2011, with 2015 being the only four year cycle that didn’t end in them playing for the national title. Perhaps this will be the second time that cycle is broken.
Twitter continues its slow death spiral, and I am checking it less and less these days, and staying there very briefly. I do have some friends still there that I like to interact with, but of course the others are slowly becoming what Twitter became as well. Yesterday a straight white man came barging onto a thread of George Takei on Threads, in which George was talking about how difficult it is for queer people–for any minority–to deal with elections, when our rights hang in the balance every fucking time, and how sometimes as a queer person or a person of color, you have to grit your teeth and vote for the Democrat because no matter what or who, the Republican option isn’t an option for queer people or people of color—unless we really hate ourselves to the point that we hate other people like us, or only care about our money rather than our rights. The example George was using was campaigning and voting for Bill Clinton after he signed both DADT and DOMA into law during his first time despite his avowed belief in the rights and dignity of queer people in 1992 on the campaign trail. Fox News and the right used his support of queer rights–along with a ridiculous scandal with no evidence of wrong-doing by either Clinton (remember Whitewater? I sure the fuck do)–to take back the House in 1994 and handicap any attempts at being progressive. I also remember Bill Clinton trying to get a form of the Affordable Care Act passed–the right also used that battlecry of “socialism” to scare people into giving them that House majority with Newt Gingrich as speaker (I remember it all too well). The reason I remember this all too well is because HIV/AIDS was still killing people and there was no cure as of yet; a positive test meant a very good chance of death relatively soon. I fucking lived through the 80s and the 90s, thank you very much.
I also remember that Bill Clinton was the first presidential candidate to mention HIV/AIDS, and to notice that queer people actually exist–so you can fucking miss me with the Hillary hate, thank you.
Anyway “straight white man” (hereafter referred to a Mr. Mediocre) barged into George’s thread to lecture him about compromise voting and how if we would all just really get behind true progressives, change would be that much easier and how he could just never ever bring himself to the point where he could vote for someone who ever voted for a war.1 That told me everything I needed to know about Mr. Mediocre–the “ally” who couldn’t bring himself to vote for Hillary in 2016 because she voted for the war, believing the lies the Bush Administration and his fully supportive Congress were pushing on us all, calling those of us who didn’t want the war cowards and/or traitors, questioning our very patriotism. Blaming Hillary for believing the lie so you threw your vote away in 2016 so you could remain “pure” fucked over your so-called “allies,” you miserable piece of shit. And instead of ignoring and blocking, which is what I usually did, the audacity of Mr. Mediocre lecturing George fucking Takei, a gay Japanese-American who grew up in an American concentration camp for American citizens of Japanese descent on purity politics just didn’t go down with me, so I replied, Oh, look, another straight white man who will be okay no matter who is in power lecturing those whose rights are on the line with every election about his purity. Don’t hurt yourself patting yourself on the back while you screw over minorities over some purity test that we don’t have the privilege of applying to our votes.“Allies” like you gave us Bush in 2000 and Trump in 2016. Thanks for that, by the way.
If you think Mr. Mediocre would let that go, let me introduce you to The Progressive Straight White Man. They can never let that shit go. You know he read my response and climbed back up on his High Horse–how dare a gay man call him out and speak to him that way! He told me “You should want better, but I’ll still keep working for women and minorities.2“
I replied, I do want better but am realistic as a minority in this country to know that no matter what I have to vote for the least damaging candidate because my rights are actually on the line with every election, so don’t condescend to me about your purity tests and progressive bonafides when a real ally will show up, hold his nose and vote for the Democrat. We warned you the Supreme Court was at risk, but her emails! That pesky vote for the war! So forgive us for not applauding you for your purity. Now the Supreme Court is poised to take us back to 1860 but hey, at least you can sleep at night for not voting for the warmonger.
Asshole. After all, Dobbs didn’t affect him–and when his daughter is forced to carry her rapist’s baby, I hope he remembers that purity vote in 2016 with pride.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I need to eat something and make another cup of coffee and get the potato leek soup started, no easy chore. Plus I want to write up what I read yesterday and the impressions they left with me. Have a great Sunday, COn
which means he wouldn’t have voted for the two most progressive presidents we’ve ever had, I might add; FDR declared war, and LBJ voted for it, as well as intervention in Korea. Some progressive this dude is, right? ↩︎
Love that pathetic attempt at progressive shaming, which again tells me everything I need to know about his politics–if he doesn’t get the perfect candidate that aligns with everything he believes (a pipe dream that will never happen), he won’t vote for them no matter what that means for women and minorities. Some ally. ↩︎
Saturday morning and we’ve at long last made it to the weekend! Huzzah! I have a lot to do this weekend, and I even have to leave the house both nights. This afternoon I am attending a co-worker’s wedding; tomorrow I am having dinner at San Lorenzo with my friend Ellen. Woo-hoo! Yesterday was a good day. I did my work-at-home chores, along with chores, and then ran some errands so I wouldn’t have to do them today–a decision I am very grateful for this morning, believe you me. I then read Angel Luis Colón’s Infested for a while, finished my reread of Death Drop, and watched an episode of Moonlighting. I also rewatched the last two episodes of Our Flag Means Death again–glad I did; I slept through most of them and they were most witty and clever and funny. When Paul got home we started the new season of Elité, but it’s more a habit and completionism to continue watching it at this point. It’s glory days are long past, I barely remember who any of the characters are, and I don’t really remember much of last season, to be honest.
Sigh. But those first three seasons are still epic television. This is kind of what I mean when I talk about shows that keep going because they’re successful when they should have stopped when they were ahead; the season three finale was an excellent stopping place–but at the same time I would have been terribly bummed had the show ended there, too. Be careful what you wish for, right?
The sun was bright and high this morning, just as it was yesterday morning, which leads me to believe the time change should have been this weekend instead of two or three weeks from now. It used to always be in October; and I don’t know why or when it was changed to November, but if we’re going to have to do this every year, can’t we at least have it happen when it always used to happen? I slept really well last night–I’ve been sleeping well all week, actually. I think the change in the weather has helped with that dramatically. I still feel a bit groggy this morning, but that’s okay. I am going to write this and read some more of Infested once it’s posted, and then I have some things to do around here. The wedding window period is from 4-9, with the actual ceremony around five. I am going to try really hard not to be that person who always arrives ahead of the scheduled time and has to sit around waiting for everyone else to show up–the story of my life–and I am quite determined not to even summon a Lyft until four o’clock.
I’m really enjoyed Infested, but I knew I would. I’ve been a long-time admirer of Angel’s work for quite some time now, and his narrative voice is absolutely perfect in this book. I’m not sure if it’s considered middle-grade or y/a–that line is always so blurry–but it’s quite engaging and I really like the main character. I’m also not entirely sure I’ve read a book before that’s set entirely in the Bronx? (And why is it “the Bronx”? It’s not “the Queens” or “the Brooklyn” or “the Manhattan”, but just saying “Bronx” without the article is weird…although I suspect that’s entirely from years of hearing it said with the article.) I am really enjoying it.
I’ve thought about writing for middle grade (I’ve literally thought about writing everything other than fantasy –I even have some science fiction, incredibly bad, in the files) but am not sure if I can do it, which is precisely the reason I should try writing it. I’ve always wanted to do my own kind of Nancy Drew-style series for kids, have wanted to ever since I was a kid reading those books, and I’d really like to at least give it a try at some point before I finally exit the planet or am unable to write anything anymore. Although can I really write for middle-graders when I don’t know any kids that age? Writing is writing, I suppose, and the best thing to do is try it and write the very best book I can with the very best characters I can; I do think two of my strengths as a writer are likable characters and a good narrative style that draws the reader in. Can that translate to middle grade mysteries? I guess I will never know unless I try–and maybe, just maybe, I could write one set in New Orleans?
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines with my book to read. Have a lovely Saturday; I may be back later; you never know!
Imagine my delight and surprise to discover that the meeting I thought I had to go into the office for later this morning had a virtual option, so I am not leaving the house today–other than to run a necessary errand later.
I may even put that off until tomorrow.
Yesterday was a lovely day at the office. Everyone was in a pleasant mood, and everything flowed well. I enjoyed all my client interactions and everything ran smoothly the way it is supposed to always run, and that was lovely. I wasn’t even terribly tired when I got off work, but knew I’d be in a mood by the time I got home. Why? Because there was a Saints game last night in the Superdome, and traffic in the CBD was going to be a nightmare. It was, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be, and I made an impatient decision about the route home that was a big mistake. It took me about forty-five minutes to get home from work–what usually takes at most fifteen minutes; Wednesday night, for example, I detoured up to the Carrollton corridor to go to the Rouses, and still managed to grocery shop and everything and get home less than an hour after I left the office. Saints game also meant crowd at the bar on the corner, which meant difficulty finding a place to park. No big deal, I did find a place to park and then came inside.
Heavy sigh.
So, we have guys here working on the roof and the gutters. There’s also a bridge from the patio upstairs over to the carriage house gallery. It had apparently rotted; so they’ve been working on that. The patio is directly over my kitchen. I came inside, and there was debris all over the stove and that counter. “Weird,” I thought, and actually said out loud, annoyed, “well, I’m glad I cleaned in here” before looking up to see a blue sky. Yes, while they were working on the bridge yesterday, they were trying to do something and the kitchen ceiling/patio floor gave way. Unable to help myself I yelled, “Oh, fuck!” Well, the thing about a hole in the ceiling is the poor workers–who hadn’t really done anything wrong; it wasn’t their fault that portion of ceiling/floor had rotted out, of course–heard me. And then I went outside to see what they were doing and one of them sheepishly asked me how I was doing, and I replied in full candor, “well, I’m not thrilled about the hole in my kitchen ceiling” which led to apologies and explanations and they even came by several times to apologize again. They also cleaned up the mess in the kitchen and put up a piece of plywood to cover the hole, reassuring me this was a stopgap measure and they’d repair it. It was amusing–well, it is now, not so much at the time–but I then found myself reassuring them I knew they didn’t do it on purpose, thanking them for cleaning up the mess and covering the hole, etc etc etc. I had intended to work on my short story in progress, “The Blues Before Dawn,” when I got home and maybe read some of Angel Luis Colón’s Infested, but that of course disrupted the entire evening so I grabbed Tug and he slept in my lap while I watched the last episode of the first season of Moonlighting (it was a late midseason replacement and the first season was only six episodes, including the pilot). Paul came home, he went through the stages of grief about the kitchen ceiling that I already had, and then we watched The Morning Show and Our Flag Means Death before I went to bed (I actually fell asleep during OFMD so have to rewatch at some point today or tomorrow).
I slept deeply and well, not arising this morning until eight (other than the usual “Tug needs food NOW” daily five a.m. wake-up) and now am facing my day. I am going to get this done and posted, probably work on some emails before starting my work-at-home duties, which will also include chores around the house (laundry’s first load already going in the laundry room) and hopefully, I will get some work done on that short story. I had decided to write this as a Sherlock-in-New-Orleans story, but not told by Watson–which is a risk on top of a risk–and then see how it went. In talking to a friend yesterday I also realized part of the reason I am having trouble writing and/or getting started on a new project is because everything is in limbo because of my arm surgery. I don’t know how long the recovery process is going to be and I also don’t know how much writing I’ll be able to do in a cast and sling (and not the good kind of sling, either–see what I did there?) I’m afraid to commit to a deadline knowing that I can’t even self-delude myself that I’ll make that deadline (I never do, but I never agree to one knowing ahead of time I won’t make it). It’s also been an extremely rough year for me, and there’s nothing wrong with not being as productive as you would like because other things are going on in your life that you simply can’t avoid dealing with–which is usually my preference, immature and childish as it is–and recognizing patterns of behavior within yourself. I’ve done a lot of self-examination and reevaluating my past as well as who I am along with why I am who I am, if that makes sense. A lot of that had to do with Mom dying, as well as me recognizing that probably my absolute best work inevitably always winds up being set in Alabama. That Alabama tie, those roots, run so deep inside me that they’re inescapable, really.
I also started reading Death Drop last night. Reviews are starting to come in, and friends are reading it and telling me they’re enjoying it, and the truth was I couldn’t really remember a lot about the book so thought it was probably a good idea to reread it. So much was going on during the process of writing the book–it and Mississippi River Mischief, which doesn’t even take into consideration the fact that I was actually writing two books at the same time (not recommended, aspiring authors, don’t be a Greg; be smarter)–that I couldn’t really remember much of it (I may need to reread Streetcar too) and being familiar with your own work that you’re promoting is usually smart. Now that my memory isn’t what it used to be, rereading my work is like reading something new by another author because I don’t remember anything about the book itself other than the drudgery of writing, editing, and revising the damned thing. But I was very pleased with it–I wasn’t able to finish the reread, but got pretty deep into the book–and it flows well and there are parts that are seriously funny. Of course, like always I started nitpicking at it, but after about chapter three I turned off the internal editor and just read it as though I was reading it for pleasure rather than reminding myself of what I had written. The characters are likable and all of them–even the minor ones–seemed fully realized and with their own agency; by which I mean they aren’t always just dropping everything to rush to help Jem out at the expense of their own lives and aren’t there to simply feed him information or help him work through his problems. I also liked the voice, and I really like my main character Jem Richard, the glam artist just dipping his toes into the world of drag performance. I intended it to be a drag queen origin story–the answer to the question “so how did you start doing drag?”–and it absolutely works in that regard.
And the book itself is gorgeous, simply gorgeous. I couldn’t be more pleased.
It’s also weird having two new books drop in such a short period of time. It certainly wasn’t planned that way, and entirely happened because my life blew up and I didn’t make deadlines for either. But I promised myself I would be better about promotion and so forth, so here we go.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later or perhaps tomorrow.
My, what a gorgeous day it was yesterday–the kind that reminds me why I love it here so much and helps me forget the horror that is July-August (although I believe the summer horror began in late May this year). I made groceries in the morning and also retrieved everything from the carriage house to put in the new refrigerator; it’s lovely. I hadn’t realized what a pain in the ass it was making do with the shitty old one. I didn’t get all that filing worked on, but I did make some material progress that will help get me started working on it all again this week. I have more appointments this week–primary care doctor on Wednesday afternoon, and I have to actually go into the office on Friday for a benefits meeting. Our insurance is changing to a new carrier in the new year, which is why it was so important for me to get all this medical shit out of the way while I still have insurance that will take care of everything, or at least I understand how it operates. I absolutely hate the idea that I will have to relearn all my insurance stuff again in the new year.
It makes me tired.
I slept well today, and don’t have to go into the office at all. We’re having a “professional development day”, which starts at City Park at ten this morning and goes all day, from place to place–we go to Dillard University and later to Ralph’s on the Park–before coming home at six pm. Tomorrow goes back to normal. I didn’t want to get up this morning–Tug also wanted me to stay in bed; he followed me downstairs and is sleeping in my lap while I am typing this (Paul has started calling him Sparky, which kinds of fits…) but is also very sweet. He spent most of yesterday either chasing the laser light, playing with an old catnip toy of Scooter’s (catnip didn’t affect Scooter; Tug/Sparky is an entirely different story), or sleeping in my lap. I spent most of the day in my chair finishing Elizabeth Hand’s marvelous A Haunting on the Hill, which I will talk about in more detail in another entry. I also started reading Rival Queens as my new non-fiction read; it’s about Catherine de Medici and her daughter Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre (aka Queen Margot) and of course, this is one of my favorite periods of history and two of my favorite, most interesting sixteenth century queens; Catherine de Medici is fascinating. A version of Game of Thrones played out in France between 1559 and 1594, and I’m always kind of amazed that it’s not written about more–but Americans are always more interested in English history, if they have any interest in history at all.
It’s a pity, because I’ve always found French history more interesting.
While I was reading A Haunting on the Hill yesterday an old idea of mine–a sort of sideways sequel to Bury Me in Shadows started developing in my mind; another Corinth County novel, only this time with Beau, Jake’s boyfriend from the University of Alabama and an archaeology/Alabama history major, as the main character. I’ve had this idea for a short story for a very long time–set in Corinth County–called “Children of the Stone Circle”, which I think I may have even written an entire first draft a long time ago; just could never tell how to make it work and make it real. It came to me while reading the Elizabeth Hand–I always get inspired when I read books that are well-written that I enjoy–and I made copious notes in my journal. That felt good–it felt good to power down my brain for most of the weekend and kind of relax. I am delighted to have finished the Hand–and for reasons that I will explain when I write about the book, I decided the reread of The Haunting of Hill House–which I still want to do–wasn’t a necessary follow up to the Hand. I am going to read Angel Luis Colon’s Infested next, and perhaps some more y/a middle-grade horror. I do want to reread King’s The Dead Zone, too; it’s been quite a while.
I also watched another episode of Moonlighting last night, which I am really enjoying the rewatch of. There were some cultural references to the time that don’t work–last night’s episode had Addison make a reference to a highly popular ad campaign that was already over but still very much a part of the zeitgeist when the show started–but overall, it’s still a great show. Cybill Shepherd was just stunningly beautiful, and she made a great straight man character for Willis to bounce his antics and humor off, and the chemistry between the two of them was simply off the charts. I had also forgotten how utterly charming the character of Miss DiPesto (“My name’s Agnes, but my friends call me Miss DiPesto”) as played by Allyce Beasley was; I was already a fan of hers when the show started because of her turn in one of the best episodes of Cheers, where she played Coach’s daughter.
“But Gregalicious, I thought you were rewatching Friday the 13th the Series this month in honor of Halloween?” I was, but the episodes are on Youtube, the quality of some are terrible (they were clearly uploaded and digitized from old VCR recordings, and for those of us who remember using VCR’s, we also still remember how bad some of those recordings were–especially when you were re-using cassettes) and it became annoying, and then Moonlighting dropped. So yes, I am not devoting myself to all things horror this month the way I had intended to, and no, I’ve not been taking the walks every night like I wanted to when the weather turned. Partly because I am tired when I get home every night from work, and partly because Tug/Sparky needs attention when I walk through the door and I am more than willing to give the adorable little kitty whatever he wants. He fell asleep in my lap yesterday once while still sitting up–his head was still up, not resting on anything, and he was sound asleep, which I’ve never seen anyone or anything do before.
And when he gets comfortable and is deep in dreamland, he sprawls in the most adorable ways. He also was happy in his sleep at one point, too–he started making biscuits on the arm of my easy chair while purring, but was sound asleep.
Yes, he’s adorable and yes, he is now master of the apartment.
And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I will see you later.
And here we are at work-at-home Friday again today. I have an MRI scheduled at Tulane Institute of Sports Medicine this morning, but other than that I will be here at home, getting prepared for the refrigerator to arrive and doing other chores around my work-at-home duties. It was an exhausting week, both for me personally and for the world politically. I generally don’t comment on world events, primarily because I am at best a distant observer who depends on news reports and because I don’t feel informed enough to have an opinion. I do know that I abhor brutality and think all death is unnecessary, especially in the name of politics, religion, and racism. The situation in the Middle East–volatile for my entire life–is one without answer, I fear. I also remember how foolishly we all were for thinking the Camp David Accords would bring peace to the region. The only peace it brought was between Israel and Egypt–and that has lasted. I don’t have any answers, and I feel making comments that are uninformed without solutions does not add to the discourse nor move anything forward in a positive manner, so I just keep my mouth shut and hope for an end to the death and slaughter and trauma.
Yesterday was an exhausting day overall. Everything at the office was some kind of haywire in an almost “Mercury must be in retrograde” kind of way, and most of it went on while I was the only person there–which was kind of unsettling. It was also Mom’s birthday so my subconscious was already raw and on edge. But I worked through it, there wasn’t a body count, and I stopped to get the mail on my way home–where I picked up the Box O’Books for Death Drop (yay!) and my Ben Pierce Photography calendar “Beneath the Waters: Images of the Atchafalaya Basin Drawdown”. Ben Pierce is an extraordinary photographer of the natural beauty of Louisiana. I follow him on Facebook and often share his work because it’s so breathtakingly beautiful and evocative; and doesn’t Atchafalaya Basin Drawdown sound like a Scotty title? I’ve been meaning to look into what precisely that means and why they are draining the basin since he started sharing images from it earlier this year; I should perhaps put that on the to-do list? While I was waiting for Paul and playing with Tug (trying to wear him out, in all honesty; he was wired like a circuit party queen last night), who met the laser light/magical red dot for the first time last night. He soon figured out where it was coming from, but still chased it none the less, and eventually when I set it down it also became a toy so there’s no telling where it is this morning. I watched another episode of Moonlighting last night which didn’t seem to hold up as well as previous ones–too much speculation about Maddie’s sex life, which was completely untoward and bothered me–and I also got caught up on Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, which I’ve never really watched very much but started this season at the urging of friends. I’ve yet to watch the reboot of New York, either. I think there’s a blog entry I need to write about reality television shows like these, which I had already started after the completion of the most recent season of Beverly Hills. The out-of-touch narcissism of the SLC women still seems fun and funny to me, while the other franchises have kind of gone off the rails with repugnant behavior (looking at you, Lisa Rinna)–but I’ll save that for the blog post about reality television; which is why I don’t really talk about these shows much on here.
I also read some more of Riley Sager’s Final Girls, which I am enjoying–even if it doesn’t seem like it. One of the casualties of the pandemic was my ability to read quickly; I don’t know what happened, but it’s entirely due to my attention span and not the quality of the books I’m reading; look at how long it took me to read Shawn’s book, which was fucking brilliant. It’s going with me to Tulane this morning so I can read more of it, and then I am coming home to work for the rest of the afternoon. I slept really well again last night. I woke up at six (I do that every morning now, regardless) but the alarm was set for seven so I stayed in bed for another hour, which felt marvelous, really. I feel very rested and centered this morning–which is lovely after the chaotic yesterday I had–and am looking forward to the weekend. I have my to-do list, which is necessary; the refrigerator is being delivered tomorrow, so there’s no point in making groceries until after it arrives (so probably Sunday morning, most like); and of course there’s always, always, always housework to do. Boxes started accumulating again in the living room in front of where the bead chest sits (and the floor’s not terribly stable), so those have to go, and I can do some cleaning before the refrigerator is delivered (we currently have an 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. window, which I assume will change tomorrow morning). The LSU game isn’t until Saturday night, and I am not certain there are any other games of interest this weekend…which doesn’t mean I won’t have a game on all day from eleven a.m. on, of course; I most likely will. (Of course, I just looked, and yes, several games of interest–Notre Dame-USC, Alabama-Arkansas, Texas A&M-Tennessee, and of course Auburn-LSU.)
And on that note, sorry to be so brief but I think I am needing to get headed into the spice mines this morning. I may be back later, I don’t know; but stranger things have indeed happened, so one can never rule anything out. If not, for sure tomorrow morning. Have a terrific Friday, Constant Reader!
It does bother me sometimes that I become such a creature of habit, falling easily into ruts and the same-old same-old sort of routines all the time. “But Gregalicious,” Constant Reader might well reply, with at least eyebrow aloft, “you’re an author. A creative! How can such a person fall into a rut?”
It’s incredibly easy, just so you know, especially when you have all kinds of wiring issues in your brain–the kind that make completing tasks satisfying, for one example–and so there’s serenity and peace and safety in routine, in doing the same thing repeatedly, every day, that finds bliss and peace and an almost nirvana-like state while doing repetitive tasks, like making condom packs, filing, and so on. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, per se, but it also makes those ruts easier to get stuck in and that much harder to get out of. Take yesterday. I had my echo cardiogram (sonogram) yesterday morning, so I didn’t get to the office until later in the day than usual and thus felt off all day. It was fine; work was fine and I love my clients–I always have lovely experiences for the most part dealing with them and my co-workers–but because I didn’t get there until later, I felt off all day; not off the rails maybe, but like I was wobbling on those rails but staying on them. I thought about that a lot last night; but I did manage to get some things done. I edited a short story for a dear friend, so I felt like I did accomplish something in a cold, rainy, rather dreary day.
ANd it was a cold, dreary, rainy day. The rain started up around noon, and the temperature–already low–began dropping. I wore wear my office hoodie home–didn’t need the umbrella as it was just sprinkling when I left the office–but the wind had picked up by the time Paul went to the gym and came back. Our weather alert for yesterday was coastal flooding and dangerously high winds (gusts of up to 47 miles per hour) but once I was home I was fine. I did chores when I got home yesterday; laundry and dishes, oh my, and then basically wasted the evening scrolling through social media while watching Moonlighting on Hulu.
Sigh, Moonlighting. I loved this show when it aired originally, even if it did eventually jump the shark and the quality declined; it also had a big influence on me as a writer and is one of my influences that I rarely, if ever, acknowledge. I had already watched the pilot on Youtube over the summer, so now that it is finally streaming on Hulu, I decided to watch the second episode, “Gunfight at the So-So Corral,” and it holds up. The chemistry between Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis is absolutely off-the-charts, and David Addison was absolutely a star-making role for Willis. And the writing! So smart and witty and clever! I still love this show. I always loved how the show’s structure was basically very simple: each episode always began with David and Maddie arguing about something–a moral or ethical point–and absolutely refusing to see the other’s point. Then a case would land in their laps that illustrated the point they were arguing about–and by the end of the episode they were having the same discussion, only now they were arguing the other side but not quite as vigorously. I can’t wait to keep watching–I also want to reevaluate the episodes of the later seasons, which seemed lesser at the time but may not seem so now nearly forty years (!) later. I also had to giggle a little bit because this second episode was so much a part of the zeitgeist at the time–oh yes, I remember this show revived interest in some old music classics as well–I remember everyone was singing “She looked so good just a-walking down the street singing doo-wah-diddy-diddy-dum-diddy-doo” after it aired, and I also remember everyone watched and talked about the show. It was absolutely appointment television, and I am so glad I finally get the chance to rewatch one of the best crime shows every aired. Those of you who were too young to watch it the first time around, really need to watch it; I think you’ll be charmed as well as amazed at how far ahead of its time it was.
Today is also the four year anniversary of the collapse of the Hard Rock Hotel construction site on Canal and Rampart streets. Four workers were killed, and the nightmare of the disaster lived with us in New Orleans for months afterwards as they tried to figure out a way to not only recover the dead bodies (which is horrible to contemplate) but also closed both streets at the intersection because the site was dangerous. That final Carnival before the COVID shut down (and also a super-spreader event) seemed cursed; the parades had to be rerouted around the site and several people were killed at parades by floats that year. It seems like that happened to a different world, doesn’t it? That was also the year LSU fielded one of the greatest college football teams of all time–I remember thinking, after LSU won the national championship and the world shut down, jokingly but also a bit serious, “LSU fielded one of the greatest college teams of all time–so much so that it broke the world.”
We also watched this week’s episode of The Morning Show once Paul got home from the gym. I’m really enjoying this show, and the addition of Jon Hamm to the cast as an Elon Musk-type (only good-looking and sexy and charming) was really smart. We also binged the first three episodes of the second season of Our Flag Means Death this week, which is just genius. Sigh, I do love me some pirates.
I also ordered our new refrigerator yesterday morning, it will be delivered on Saturday and so on Friday I get to start moving the contents of the refrigerator into the carriage house refrigerator and will need to move shit out of the way Saturday morning. I’m hoping it comes relatively early so I’m not just sitting around all day waiting for them to come; LSU plays Auburn at night, so hopefully it will be in the apartment up and running by the time the sun finds its home in the western sky and it becomes SATURDAY NIGHT IN DEATH VALLEY. I don’t think we’ll be going to any games this year, but that’s fine. With all this medical stuff going on, it’s best that I spend my weekends at home resting and trying to get things done. I started making the list yesterday of what I need to get done and when it needs to be done by–I really need to finish revising that short story and writing the other one that’s due by the end of the month–and I want to finish the Sager this week so I can move on to my next Halloween Horror Month read.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I will chat with you again tomorrow before my MRI.
Queer and Loathing in America 