Category: diversity

Thank God It’s Christmas

And now it’s Christmas morning, with tidings of great joy and all that. It’s thirty-six degrees in New Orleans and our Hard Freeze Warning doesn’t let up until nine this morning, but it’s still not exactly going to be warm or anything. But that’s fine. I have lots to do today and I slept in again (it’s been marvelous, sleeping late this long weekend but it’s going to make getting up Tuesday morning in the cold difficult, I fear) and feel rested this morning. Which is a very good thing, don’t get me wrong on that. But when I finish this I need to clean up the dishes from yesterday before I dive back into my Donna Andrews Christmas read for a bit before I dive headfirst back into the book. I did get some writing done yesterday–didn’t make the quota, so will have to make up for that today as well as meet today’s–and I am enjoying Donna’s book tremendously. After Paul got home from his trainer, I gave up on reading and we settled in to watch some movies: See How They Run (great cast, clever concept, not completely executed properly); The Banshees of Inisherin (not seeing how that was nominated for comedy Golden Globes, unless it’s such dark humor that I completely missed it. There are some terrific performances in it, though); All Quiet on the Western Front (a remake of the Oscar winning classic; perhaps one of the grimmest and darkest looks at how miserable war really is and definitely an Oscar contender); and finally–well, I don’t remember the fourth film we watched last night before going to bed, which is probably not a good sign of either its memorability or my memory. Maybe it’ll come to me as I write this, who knows?

I made pulled turkey for Christmas Eve, with an eye to not having to cook anything today, and I bought too much. I usually get one of those small boneless turkey breasts from Butterball, but I couldn’t find one anywhere this week, but Friday they had turkey breasts at Rouse’s, so that’s what I got. It was twice the size of what I usually get–and we can never really finish eating–and it had bones. It barely fit into the crockpot but…it was delicious when it was finished, much better than those boneless ones, and I can’t help but wonder if the bones somehow make a difference? It was a time shredding the meat (since there were bones), and I made some Stove Top to go with it (I can make real cornbread dressing from scratch like my mom makes, but it’s a shit ton of work and it makes a shit ton of dressing, which we would never be able to completely eat). But today I shouldn’t have to cook anything, other than maybe a grilled cheese for lunch or something, and once I finish this I am going to clean the kitchen and read for a little while before getting cleaned up and diving back into the book.

It’s also a very short work week at the office, since tomorrow I have off as a holiday and so only have three days in the office this week preparatory to another three day weekend this coming weekend. There will be football games to watch over that weekend, which will make it much harder to get writing done, but the book must be turned in on January 1. I am trying not to feel guilty about not getting any more writing done yesterday and for leaving the apartment in such a mess, but one of the things I’ve become more aware of as I get older is that I need more down time to recover and regroup and recharge. There’s nothing wrong with it, of course, other than I think I used to not need the recovery time nearly as much as I do now. Then again, it’s also entirely possible I simply don’t remember and it’s merely yet another memory lie my mind is telling me, allowing me to look backward through rosy lenses to see things as markedly better in the past than they are in the present. That’s always the trick of getting older–your mind always wants you to believe that things were better or easier or made more sense in the past, when that wasn’t true; the struggle was simply different back then than it is now, but there’s always some kind of struggle going on in people’s lives. We are also masters at hiding our struggles from other people–I know there have been many times in the past when I wondered how other people managed to do so well while I was doing so poorly; now with the “wisdom” of age and experience I know they were probably all struggling too, I just didn’t know it or was too self-absorbed to notice.

Probably more of that latter part, actually.

The Saints did win yesterday, which was lovely–I had the game on in the background while I read, and then once Paul and I started watching See How They Run I followed it on my iPad and Twitter–but I am finding I am not caring much about the post-season for college football. I’ll watch LSU’s bowl game with Purdue, but other than that, I don’t care very much. I always say that, but inevitably always end up watching the national title game, regardless. I have no stake in the game, other than wanting SEC dominance to continue, and quite frankly, I’ve turned a bit on Georgia–their decision to go for two when up thirty against LSU in the conference title game so they could hit fifty left a sour taste in my mouth; enjoy your run while it lasts, Bulldogs, because your day will come again. And if you think LSU’s players, coaches and fans won’t remember that for the rest of time, think fucking again.

Then again, Joe Burrow did make the Dogs look like a high school second string in 2018 and 2019, so maybe there was some payback there from them, I don’t know. But Cajuns and Louisianans have long memories and will carry a grudge to the grave; and on that score I am definitely an honorary Cajun. (I said to a friend the other day, “I may not remember the reason, but I remember the grudge.”)

So, on that cheerful holiday note, I bid you adieu as I head into the spice mines, Constant Reader. Have a lovely day, whether you celebrate the holiday or not; at least have a lovely free day from worry or care, and I’ll check in which you again later.

You Make It Feel Like Christmas

Christmas Eve! It’s warmer today than yesterday by a full six whole degrees; it’s 32 degrees instead of 26, as it was yesterday. The The apartment is over all toasty and warm–but the kitchen and upstairs bathroom are not. They are a bearable degree of cold, but I do have the space heater going this morning in here as I type this and swill coffee and wake-up gradually. I slept magnificently last night, and feel very rested and relaxed this morning, which is quite marvelous. I hit my word count somehow yesterday–three thousand words–and hope to do the same today. Today has a higher goal–I’m feeling rather ambitious this morning–and Paul has his trainer this afternoon and is working on a grant proposal, so I should have the solitude I need to bang out the count I need to achieve today. I picked up the mail and ran some other errands yesterday–including taking Paul to Michaels on Claiborne to pick up a gift for me. You’d think by now I’d know he’s going to flout the “no gift” rule every year, because he has and yet every year I think he’s going to stick to it. I think it’s part of that failing memory thing I have going. Anyway, he had the front page of the New Orleans Times-Picayune/Advocate from the morning after the 2020 National Championship game framed and mounted; it’s a full page shot of Joe Burrow running downfield holding up both hands with his forefingers extended, with the headline PERFECT. It’s mounted on gold paper and the frame is purple, and I absolutely love it. Paul always won Christmas when we used to get plan on getting each other gifts, primarily because he pays attention to things I say and takes notes all year to plan for Christmas; I’ll never forget that marvelous year he got us tickets to see the Monte Carlo Ballet Company’s Romeo and Juliet, which I absolutely loved–all because I’d casually mentioned once that I loved ballet and wanted to write about it one day, despite knowing next to nothing about it. (Aside: I keep thinking I want to write a Sherlock Holmes story built around a Nijinsky performance in New Orleans; someday perhaps.)

We also watched, and greatly enjoyed, Glass Onion last night. I actually liked it better than Knives Out, in all honesty, and I love that this is turning into a film series. It reminds me so much of Agatha Christie at her best, and is there a better compliment to give a mystery film than a Christie comparison? I think not. I think Daniel Craig (whom I’ve loved since he emerged from the surf in that square cut swimsuit in Casino Royale, and quickly became one of my favorite James Bonds) is simply fantastic. The Southern accent grated a bit on me at first in Knives Out, but by the end of the movie it didn’t bother me anymore and it didn’t even make me recoil the first time I heard it last night. I think I’d like to write something along the lines of these films sometime–the big cast of suspects, the great detective unraveling the case–because I’ve always wanted to do an Agatha Christie style/classic vintage mystery type house party murder mystery. (Note to self: reread The Affair of the Blood-stained Egg Cosy)

But mother of God, it was cold yesterday when we were out in it. As I said to Paul–the entire world was out shopping yesterday because of course it was; we had to park a very long way from Michaels–“I can hang with this cold for a couple of days, but months of it would make me homicidal.” My grocery pick-up order ended up being canceled; they were unable to get it together for the time I’d selected, and the message was up to two hours minimum delay. At first I was a bit stunned, but then realized everyone and their mom is ordering groceries for pick-up today, and I bet the orders are a lot larger than usual. So I stopped by Rouses, they had a turkey breast in the freezer section, so I picked it up and carried it to the small order register, canceled my pick-up order (all I really needed with the turkey breast; everything else could wait) and then when I got home, put in another order for pick-up on Monday, since I have the day off.

Picking up the mail also ended up with a great gift to the Lost Apartment from the President: there was a stack of envelopes in the mailbox from the IRS for Paul, thirty in all. Turns out his student loans had all been forgiven, retroactively to 2017; the stack of envelopes were refund checks for every payment he’s made since then. So, yes, only more proof that our votes for President Biden and Democrats down the line was the right choices (and always have been for queer people). So keep your “how fucking dare you forgive student loan debt” shit to your fucking selves, you selfish assholes. This did, and will continue, to make a significant difference in our lives going forward; and can I just say, I can’t remember the last time any government policy had such an impact on us directly? Obviously, the Lawrence v. Texas and Obergefell Supreme Court decisions had a macro impact on us, but this is an intimate micro effect that made us both very happy yesterday. And what lovely timing, too–right before Christmas. Let’s go, Brandon indeed.

I get a text from Entergy this morning warning of potential brownouts because of high demand for energy with the cold weather; I would imagine this is because the cold is effecting everywhere, so there’s nowhere Entergy can borrow power from if the supply runs low. That’s kind of scary, really, because people could literally freeze to death down here; imagine that! How weird would it be for someone to freeze to death down in southeastern Louisiana? It does make me a bit concerned about the homeless population here–we have a considerable one–so I hope they all found shelter and a place to stay warm.

And I think as soon as I finish this I am going to get the turkey started in the slow cooker, and curl up in my easy chair with my coffee, a blanket, and Dashing Through the Snowbirds by Donna Andrews. I think my new Christmas tradition every year will be just that; I’ll read Donna’s Christmas mystery for Christmas every year.

Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire

Winter is here, and not the usual New Orleans winter, either. The floor here in the Lost Apartment is very, very cold; and the kitchen of course feels colder than the living room (it used to be the back porch at one time before being enclosed into a kitchen/laundry room. I didn’t sleep very well on Wednesday night, and started flagging at the office yesterday in the late afternoon. The cold didn’t help–but at least it was still pleasant. I had forgotten a few things at Rouses on Wednesday night, and while I was considering not leaving the house today, I decided it was a better idea to order things to be picked up today rather than stop on my way home when I was already tired. Work on the book was a bit of a slog yesterday–which is not a good thing at all–but I got some of the work done, and hope to get more done today. It’s a holiday, so I don’t have to do any dayjob stuff, which is lovely–I also have Monday off, which is also lovely. It’s twenty-six degrees here right now (just checked) but the sun is out and it doesn’t look terribly windy or anything out there. I was terribly tired when I got home from work yesterday–as the day went on I flagged even more. When Paul got home we watched some more Three Pines. I am not really sure if I am sold on the show or not; it’s solidly done, the acting is good and the writing is okay, but there just seems to be something missing for me. I don’t know what it is, but it’s just not hitting me the way I think it should. And ordering the groceries for today was smart–turns out Paul needs to run an errand today anyway, so there I go–I was going to have to leave the house anyway so stopping on the way home wouldn’t have made any difference as to me not leaving the house today.

I slept marvelously last night, though. Scooter woke me up this morning at five thirty-ish, hungry–he doesn’t care about what day it is–but I went back to bed and was able to sleep nicely for another few hours, which was marvelous, really. I felt very rested this morning, and like I might be able to power through all the writing I need to do today. The groceries aren’t scheduled for pick-up until around one, so I figure I can get a lot done this morning while I swill my coffee. There’s a load of laundry in the dryer and a load in the dishwasher, so yay for that chore, and I usually launder the bed linens on Fridays, so I could get a jump start on that as well. Yay for ambition!

And ugh, just looking around the kitchen–yes, I should spend some time this morning cleaning up in here. Yikes. I’ve really become a slipshod housekeeper. Maybe in the spring I could take a week off from work and just work on projects around the house. Hmmm. That’s actually not a bad idea. I’m not going to be traveling much in the future–I was thinking about it yesterday, as reports of delays and cancelled flights kept popping up everywhere and friends who actually were traveling were posting complaints about delayed flights and lost luggage and delays and I was like, ugh, I’ve really begun to hate traveling. I like being there once I get there, but I hate the process. I traveled a lot this past year, I guess to make up for the pandemic years where I went nowhere other than Kentucky? But the whole airport/airplane/other passengers process, parking at the airport and getting a cab on arrival, etc…I am getting to the point where just thinking about it makes my blood pressure rise and my head hurt and my anxiety to climb. I am going to New York in a few weeks (note to self: book airport shuttle service for LaGuardia), and after that I am probably not going to travel again other than Bouchercon in the late summer/fall, in San Diego. I’ll probably also have to go to Kentucky at some point as well. Heavy heaving sigh.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I am looking forward to these peaceful four days. It’s weird, isn’t it, how it simply being a holiday somehow makes a difference? I’m not precisely sure why that is, but somehow it has. I think it’s knowing that even if I wanted to go run an errand or something I wouldn’t be able to? I don’t know, maybe it’s one of the many quirks in my brain, but there you have it.

It’s funny, when I pulled up the draft for today’s post and saw the picture I’d selected already for it (I do that in advance) I realized it’s really a perfect illustration for my story “The Snow Globe.”

I mean, if you’ve read it you’d know what I mean. If you want to read it and buy the anthology it’s from, you can buy it here, and wouldn’t it make a great Twelfth Night gift for someone you love?

And as a little Christmas gift, here’s the story’s opening yet again.

Santa, Dylan thought, certainly has a great six-pack.

He smiled as he leaned against the bar, watching the so-called Santa with a slight smile. He definitely wasn’t your average department store Santa, that was for sure.

The guy’s body was thickly muscled and perfectly proportioned. His biceps and shoulders were thick, every muscle cord and fiber etched and carved beneath his smooth, tanned skin. The cleavage his big chest was deep, his nipples like purplish quarters. It didn’t seem possible for his waist to be so small, and the crevices between his abdominal muscles were deep enough for a finger to fit between up to the first knuckle. His legs were powerful and strong, ropy bulging veins pushing against the silky skin.

Like a traditional Santa, his face was hidden behind the obligatory long white wig and the thick white beard and mustache—but that was his only bow to tradition. Rather than a red suit with white trim and a big black belt, he simply wore a tiny bikini of crushed red velvet with glittery red sequins trimmed around the waist and legs with green faux fur.  Large brass rings exposing pale skin connected the front to the back. His red boots sparkled with red sequins and glitter, trimmed at the top with green velvet. Slung over his right shoulder was a red velvet bag, also trimmed with green faux fur. Every movement he made as he talked to a group of young twinks with poofy hair and obscenely slim hips caused muscles to bulge and flex somewhere.

Dylan knew he was staring but didn’t care.

The Christmas Waltz

The cold is coming!

New Orleans is going to have a hard freeze that lasts from this evening through Saturday night–which means I really need to make sure I don’t need to necessarily leave the house before Sunday, when the temperatures will be more normal for December in New Orleans. I’m just glad I am not flying anywhere this weekend–or driving. Yikes! It snowed the Christmas before Katrina–not really much of anything–which I’ve often pointed to as a sign that the horror was coming, but it’s snowed in New Orleans a couple of times since then without the city being destroyed the following year.

But it’s always in the back of our minds.

Thursday and my last day before the holiday weekend. I stopped and got the mail on the way home yesterday; I also made groceries. I also worked on the book some more, so I am hopeful that I can get some serious work done over the holidays. I am only going to take Christmas day off from writing–it’s the holiday after all, and I can swing a day to rest and do nothing and read Dashing Through the Snowbirds; it’ll be lovely reading over my morning coffee, which is really my favorite thing to do. Maybe in 2023 that can be my Sunday morning routine: coffee and a good book. Sounds marvelous, does it not?

Hilariously, I’ve been trying to remember my year of 2022 in an attempt to do some kind of end of year summary, or pick my favorite books and television programs and movies of the year, and to talk about highlights and so forth; but I’ve been wracking my brain to no avail. I couldn’t even remember when precisely I’d gone up north to visit my family in the spring, or if I didn’t go (I did, in going through the books I reviewed/discussed on here I came across the two audiobooks I listened to on my last trip, and those entries were in May; so yes, indeed I’d gone up there in the spring. I would have testified under oath not only that I didn’t go up in the spring but would have probably scoffed at the very idea). So, making a favorites of the year list would either be most likely incomplete or lacking validity in that I couldn’t remember everything. I also generally don’t like making favorites lists in the first place; how does one quantify what made me like one book more than another?

I’ve also spent some time this past year–and in the more recent weeks–thinking about my writing and my career and where to go with it next. I’ve been following a rather haphazard path since Hurricane Katrina; the hurricane showed me the futility of making plans and schedules and so forth for the distant future when nature can simply shred your plans in a matter of hours, leaving your life and your emotions in utter tatters. I know I want to make 2023 the Year of Completion; I’d love to get a lot of these unfinished projects around here done and out of the way. I do want to make a serious attempt at landing an agent in 2023; I say that every year but I’ve never really tried, so I think I am going to put myself out there in the new year and see what happens. I don’t think getting an agent will solve all of my career problems, or necessarily push me to resolve them myself–but it’s a step in the right direction, and I do think some of my in-progress works could do quite well for a publisher. Who knows? But at least having someone in my corner capable of giving me good advice–whether I take it or not is a different story, I am nothing if not headstrong–can’t really hurt going forward, can it? I have done pretty well for myself on my own, but going it alone my entire career was never part of the plan.

Ah well. Man plans, the gods laugh.

But yes, there are a lot of unfinished projects around the Lost Apartment, writing-wise. I need to get these first two finished as soon as possible, and then I am going to pick an unfinished project to work on every month. It’s an ambitious writing goal, to be sure, but I think if I focus–always an issue–I can make a lot of headway on a project. If it’s not finished at the end of the month, it goes back into the drawer and the next month will be spent working on the project scheduled for that month, and so on. Even as I typed that out I can foresee issues with it; what if I am on a roll at the end of the month? And is it that easy for me to switch from one voice and style to another? No, not really; it generally takes me a quick minute or so to get back in sync with the voice and the characters and the plot, but it does happen–writing my way through it always seems to help.

I did manage to pay all the bills and yes, I was correct–there was indeed a ridiculous amount of cash left over. A lot of bills, however, are coming due with that next paycheck, so I will have to conserve my cash to make sure I can make it through that rough almost-everything-comes-due-between-the-fifth-and-the-fifteenth period.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. The traffic has been much lighter on the way to work this week–I imagine the same will hold true next week as well–and so I am not nearly as aggravated and stressed when I get to the office, which has been kind of nice. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and tomorrow I will check in with you about surviving the freeze. AIEEEE!!!!

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Oh, seriously, sometimes I wonder how I manage to still have a career. I did a list of great New Orleans crime novels–a place to get started, because there are a lot of them–for Crime Reads; you can click here to read it. It wasn’t easy narrowing it down to the few I selected, but I also wanted to be certain that the ones I chose were ones I absolutely, positively loved. (The one exception is Dinner at Antoine’s; I read that one as a teenager when I went through a Frances Parkinson Keyes phase–I the King is my absolute favorite) and of course, I didn’t mention James Lee Burke because really, does anyone really need to mention him when it comes to New Orleans and Louisiana crime novels? He’s the uncrowned king of Louisiana crime fiction, plus not picking him relieved me of the duty to figure out which book to choose. (Although I would have undoubtedly gone with The Tin Roof Blowdown, his post Katrina novel, which made me cry several times.)

After making groceries yesterday morning–yes, it’s always smart to go to the Rouses in the CBD on a Saints home-game day, seriously–I came home and relaxed a bit before digging back into the book. I didn’t get nearly as much done as I would have preferred; yesterday was one of those pulling hen’s teeth days. But the Saints managed to hang on to sweep Atlanta for the season, which is the highlight of their terrible season thus far (but we never lost to the Falcons this season), and then we finished watching Smiley (which is absolutely delightful) and then started Wednesday, which I’d been nervous about starting. I watched the original television version of The Addams Family, and Addams Family Values is one of my top three comedy movies of all time. I am still annoyed that Christina Ricci wasn’t nominated for an Oscar for either film; I’ve been a fan ever since and Wednesday, who didn’t really have much of a role on the original show, became my favorite character. I’d been putting it off, despite the great reviews, because I was worried I’d be disappointed. Constant Reader, I was not. Wednesday is terrific, and Jenna Ortega really nails the part. Catherine Zeta-Jones is fine as Morticia, but it’s hard to replace Anjelica Huston, who was sublime. We wound up bingeing almost the entire first season. Absolutely loving it.

It’s hard to believe this is it, the final countdown to Christmas. It’s this coming weekend, and while we still don’t have a refrigerator–out Christmas gift to ourselves this year–maybe we can get a great deal on one after Christmas. The ones with the freezer on the bottom are apparently all about an inch or two too tall to fit into the cubby where ours goes; it’s the damned unusable cabinets about it that are the problem. I don’t know if the cabinet needs to be torn out or if it can be raised a few inches and remounted on the wall; probably the easiest thing to do is just get the freezer-on-top size that fits and be done with it. It certainly would be the easiest thing to do, really. I just had my heart set on one with the freezer on the bottom–another disappointment I’ll need to learn to live with, apparently.

It’s cold again this morning, still sub-fifty degrees. The new heating system in the Lost Apartment works incredibly well–the only reason I even had the slightest clue that the it was cold outside was how cold the downstairs floor is beneath my socks. It’s supposed to freeze this weekend with a slight potential of snow–SNOW IN NEW ORLEANS (which I really need to write about sometime; the way the city reacts to snow always amuses me in a mean sort of way. Most people down here have no idea how to drive in snow or deal with it in any way, and why would they? It doesn’t snow enough for them to ever get used to driving in it. I don’t think it’s snowed here since before 2010? I don’t remember the last time it snowed here, but I remember the only really big snow we ever had; I just don’t remember what year it was. 2007? 2008? Something like that. But my goal for the holiday weekend is to get everything done that I need to get done on the way home from work on Thursday, so I don’t have to go outside for another four days in the cold. I’ll probably spend a lot of time working feverishly on finishing the book, of course, but will take Christmas day as a holiday from everything.

And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Y’all have a great Monday, okay? I’ll be back in the dark tomorrow morning.

Underneath the Tree

Ah, Sunday. Sundae would be better, of course–who doesn’t love a sundae?

It’s below fifty this morning in New Orleans, so the predictions of colder weather coming our way in the forecast were clearly correct. It’s so nice having a heater that actually works. We didn’t turn it on upstairs, so when I got out of bed I felt a bit cold, but then I came downstairs where it is nice and comfortable. Maybe I can handle the cold weather with a working heater in the house. Who knew?

I worked a lot on the book yesterday and made a lot of progress with chores and things around the house. I’m hoping to get a big push today as well, and the only other thing I have to really do is go make groceries–I am debating as to whether or not that can wait until tomorrow on the way home from work but I am leaning towards going today and getting it over with. I also did some more refrigerator research–trying to find what I want in the price range we want that will also fit into the refrigerator space in the kitchen is proving to be more of a challenge than one would have expected. I think I found one that will barely fit into the space–it’s a matter of fractions of an inch–but we are also wondering if we can simply have the cabinet above the refrigerator removed to allow more room. Decisions, decisions–but there’s no rush, I suppose, other than my obsession now that we’ve decided to make the plunge and get a new one.

We started watching Smiley on Netflix last night, another Spanish language show with queer characters–it’s kind of a romantic comedy; there’s a gay couple, a lesbian couple, and a straight couple, all loosely connected (the pretty young gay bartender works with one of the lesbian couple at her bar; the older gay guy works with the straight guy at an architectural firm) and kind of charming. The premise is that both Alex (the bartender) and Bruno are single and about ready to give up on romance and love. Alex has a string of one night stands with guys who ghost him; Bruno has no luck with dating apps–getting some really nasty responses when he reaches out. For some reason, Alex decides to use the bar phone to call his last ghosting date, all furious and hurt and angry–but misdials and leaves the message on Bruno’s phone instead. Bruno finally decides to call back–just to let Alex know the person he meant the message for never got it–and they start talking and decide to meet. It doesn’t go well, and they end up arguing–and end up back at Alex’s having the best sex either of them have ever had, but misunderstandings continue to get in the way. The lesbians are also at a crossroads in their relationship, and decide to work through the issues rather than breaking up, and the straight couple is also having some trouble. It’s cute, it’s funny, and the actors are all pretty appealing–and of course, it’s nice seeing an “opposites-attract” gay rom-com happening on my television screen. And the young man who plays Alex is really pretty. He was also in Merli, another Spanish show we started watching but gave up on; his name is Carlos Cuevas. The guy who plays Bruno is also far too handsome to be the troll we’re supposed to believe these gay boys think he is–he’s handsome, he’s successful, he’s intelligent–Miki Esparbé; or maybe it’s because he’s older, I don’t know. But I’m interested to see how this plays out.

Christmas is next weekend, which doesn’t seem quite real to me yet. Part of this is because I am so focused on trying to get the book finished as well as trying to stay on top of everything else I am doing that days seems to slip through my fingers and the next thing you know, Christmas is next weekend. This whole year has been like this, frankly–the last few, if I am being completely honest, and in that same spirit, really everything from March 2020 on has been a confusing blur and I don’t remember when or where things happened. It’s also hard for me to grasp that 2010 was almost thirteen years ago, and trying to remember that entire decade isn’t easy. I guess this is what happens when you get older? Ah, well, it’s something I may never get used to but simply have to accept as reality, you know?

This week at work should also be interesting–the week before Christmas, and the week between Christmas and New Year’s is always a weird time around the office. We never have a lot of appointments, and we also have a lot of no-shows, which can be a pain. Paul and I haven’t watched anything even remotely Christmassy; although the Ted Lasso Christmas Special might be a fun thing to revisit.

It’s also weird as the year comes to a close as I start reflecting back on the year, and what is different going into this new year as opposed to going into the last new year. The fact that I have trouble remembering what happened throughout the year is also not any help to me at all, frankly, and neither is the fact that I always have to stop and think was that 2020 or 2021? There are also a lot of draft posts accumulated here; things I wanted to write about when I was more awake and not caffeine-deprived, so that I didn’t misspeak or say something that out of proper context could be problematic. I never talked about my reread of Interview with the Vampire or my thoughts about the new show, which I greatly enjoyed and thought was very well done, for example. (And Mayfair Witches will be debuting in the new year, which I am really looking forward to watching.)

The blog has always been my way of waking up and warming up my brain and my writing muscles, which is why it is always so scattershot and all over the place. I’m not exactly sure when it went from a daily writing exercise to a “daily writing exercise while I wake up in the morning”, but that happened at some point in the last eighteen years; my livejournal began in December of 2004, and I’ve been plugging away either there or here ever since. How much has changed since then? It snowed that December, I remember that, and we were living in the carriage house with Skittle. I know we’d put up a tree, and we were kind of looking forward to 2005 being an easier year after everything that happened in 2004. Little did I realize the evangelical Christians of Virginia were waiting in the wings, as well as a little hurricane that would be named Katrina. I had only published four novels, and only two short stories that weren’t erotica. (I just remembered that when we lived in the carriage house I had to do the laundry at a laundromat–I don’t miss that at all, even if it did get it all over with much more quickly than here at home.)

But the blog was also supposed to be a place where I could write personal essays about subjects that matter a lot to me; things I want to write about but no one will pay me to write about, you know? I started getting more cautious about writing about touchy subjects around 2008, when I went full-time at NO/AIDS (I no longer work for NO/AIDS either; as much as I appreciate the way HIV/AIDS treatment and so forth has changed, I do kind of miss the days when we were a struggling queer health non-profit), despite being reassured by NO/AIDS management that I didn’t need to worry about anything I did or said as long as I wasn’t on the clock–I still didn’t want to do or say anything here that some hater could latch onto and make trouble for the agency with. So, I started censoring myself a little bit, and the more I became involved with other non-profit volunteer work the less I felt comfortable writing about sensitive or touchy subjects, especially as the country became more and more polarized. I’m very careful never to talk about my volunteer work or my day job on here as anything other than my volunteer work or my day job. I’ve compartmentalized my life–the way I always have, back to when I was closeted to one large segment of my life and not to a much smaller part–so much so, in fact, that I’m not certain that I can stop doing it. I think one of my goals for 2023 will be to not compartmentalize as much, and to maybe spend more time finishing those personal essays that I’ve started here and never finished.

But of course, there’s also a time issue. Isn’t there always?

And on that note I am going to head into the spice mines and try to get going on everything I need to get done today. Have a lovely and comfortable Sunday wherever you are, Constant Reader. I will chat with you again soon, promise.

All I Want for Christmas Is You

Well, yesterday was a bit dramatic.

As I believe I mentioned, we were in a severe weather alert for most of the day, with everyone in the meteorology game saying conditions would seriously deteriorate in the mid-to-late afternoon. We started getting emails from upper management and operations in the mid-morning letting us know they were monitoring the weather as the afternoon drew nearer. (I had not really been aware of the bad storms that had passed by the north of us the day before, either.) The decision was made around three to close the building and send everyone home for their safety. I texted Paul to make sure he left his office (fortunately, he was working at home) and hurried home myself. It started raining by the time I got home, and settled in. Maybe about an hour or so later the warning alert on my phone went off, so I quickly tuned into the local meteorology maven Margaret Orr on WDSU (I love her, it’s going to be such a loss when she finally retires) as the storm was drawing nearer and it looked like it was going to form a tornado on the West Bank, just like that horrible storm back in March that also produced one. The maps they use on television aren’t the greatest, especially when they are pulled back as far, so it looked like my neighborhood was in the direct path for awhile. That was a bit nerve-wracking, especially as they were also giving times of arrival–“this storm will be in the lower Garden District in five minutes”–so we just braced ourselves and waited. But fortunately for us (but not for others) this storm followed almost the exact same path as the one in March–following the river and jumping across at Arabi and the lower 9th ward. But we did have some major rain and wind rattling the house. Fortunately, I had Scooter sleeping in my lap, which is always calming, and then it was past and over.

The Entergy power map seems to indicate the office has power, so operations will resume today, one would assume.

It’a also colder today–right now it’s in the fifties–which could account for me not wanting to get up this morning; it’s always so comfortable and comforting when you’re under a pile of blankets when it’s chilly. I feel like I slept through the night for the most part. I think I woke up once? But I feel more rested this morning than I have all week, which is a good thing. This is my last day in the office this week, with tomorrow being a work-at-home day. I made it through another week, but man, time is flying. I spent most of the evening reading parts of When Women Ruled the World on my Kindle or randomly opening The Prime Time Closet to read bits and pieces. When Women Ruled the World is about the sixteenth century; a period I’ve mentioned before because more women held power that century than any century before or since, and I’ve always wanted to write about those women in a book called The Monstrous Regiment of Women, taking its title from John Knox’ horrifically misogynistic text; but whereas I would want to merely overview the women who have been written about extensively already (Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, etc.) while paying more attention to the ones not as famous (infamous?) in today’s popular culture, like Margaret of Austria, Mary of Hungary, Marie de Guise, Catherine de Medici, Queen Margot, etc. (It was also the same century that produced Elizabeth Bathory…) I should have read more of Algren’s A Walk on the Wild Side, but after the adrenaline rush and emotional distress about being in the potential path of a tornado, my mind was too fried to focus on fiction. I did work on the book some, but my mind was just not in the right place for that sort of work. Hopefully, tonight and tomorrow progress will be made and I can get this under control.

And of course, Christmas is next weekend. Next weekend? Yikes!

Something awful happened to me yesterday on social media that I am still processing, so I am not really quite ready to talk about it here. It ties into a blog entry I’ve been toying with for quite some time now; but it’s not really something I can write when I am waking up and swilling coffee; it’s too personal and too complex to trust to a tired brain that isn’t as awake as it should be to tackle such a subject. I mean, it’s bad enough when you see people you know being openly homophobic or transphobic on social media, it’s even worse when it’s directed specifically at you. By someone you’ve known for years, and maybe didn’t quite consider a friend, but was definitely an acquaintance with whom you were friendly. Well, that ship has sailed–and it’s really interesting to me to see how many people who claim to be allies draw the line when it comes to my transgender siblings. But make no mistake about it: you come for the T you’re coming for me as well. When the right wing comes for the trans community and/or drag queens (which are often not the same thing), make no mistake about it, they are coming for all of us. Just as they used to vilify gay men and lesbians until most decent human beings saw how repugnant it was, they think drag queens and transpeople are an easier way to get to legalize the discrimination against all of us that they want. The language they are using is the same as the ones Anita Bryant used in the 1970’s, and the bigots who have come along in her wake have picked up the banner and use the same coded language she did. “Protect the children!” has always been their battlecry, but who are they to decide how parents should raise their children? What children should be exposed to? Your complaints about “the children” stop at your own. You do not have the right to tell other parents how to raise their children or what they can or cannot be exposed to; and the entire concept of “exposing young children to drag queens is sexualizing them!” is complete fucking bullshit on its face–and you fucking straight people have nerve saying that to queer people while keeping your fucking mouths about toddler beauty pageants. Where are the fucking Proud Boys with their AK-47’s at those events, where they paints the faces of children and dress them provocatively to the point most of them look like incredibly cheap streetwalkers? And don’t you fucking dare ever tell me that Drag Queen Story Hours are inappropriate for children because basically you are fucking saying no queer people should be around children.

Go straight to fucking hell, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

And don’t you ever dare speak to me again.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines.

Santa Tell Me

It’s always amused me that Santa is an anagram for Satan.

They may even be the only anagrams possible for each word, too.

We’re in a severe weather alert, but mostly the fear is flooding and torrential rain–the massive area under tornado watch is north of here–and it’s dark outside this morning as I sip my coffee and write this. My sleep was spotty again last night–waking up occasionally before falling back asleep again–but I do feel rested, and that’s the most important thing. Progress was made on the book yesterday, which is terrific and ever-so-pleasing to me. I did my errands yesterday after work without issue, but of course once I was home and had worked on the book for awhile, was terribly tired. I cannot allow that to happen when I get home this evening, as there are dishes to be put away and another load to be put into the washer. I’d like to spend some more time with A Walk on the Wild Side this evening as well; I need to finish it if I want to read the new Donna Andrews on Christmas day.

It’s hard to believe that Christmas is next weekend already. It doesn’t seem like it, but what would be really lovely–if it’s not a downpour when I get home from work tonight–would be to take a walk around the neighborhood and through the Garden District documenting decorations. I should make a point of this every year during Christmas and Carnival, frankly. I’ve never seen a city before that loved to decorate as much as New Orleans does–or does it even remotely as well.

But the coffee is good this morning and it’s getting light outside–grayish, really–and hopefully I won’t get rained on while driving to work. (Note to self: if it isn’t raining, bring umbrella inside from the car in case it’s raining when I leave.) I think we’re going to buy our new refrigerator this weekend, which is good since the one we currently have is absolutely on its last legs. I wanted to gt one with the freezer on the bottom, but for some reason those are a lot more expensive–by an absurd amount. So, it looks like we’ll probably get the normal kind with the freezer on the top–or maybe we can spring for a bit more and get one with side by side doors, which would be almost as effective (it’s the bending down that’s starting to get to me), but we’ll see. I think we’re just going to go to Costco and see what they have.

Yesterday a friend posted a list of all the things she accomplished in 2022–which she compiled after feeling like she really hadn’t done much during the year, and was pleasantly surprised to see how much she had, in fact, managed to do. I was thinking about this myself the other night–not that I hadn’t done much throughout the year, but rather that I’d had a rather bad year, but once I sat down and started thinking about it, it’s actually been a good year for me; actually a very good year indeed when all is said and done. Oddly enough, when I sit and look back emotionally, without going into much more depth, it was a year in which my primary memories are tired and miserable. And yet…productivity wise it may not have been my strongest year, but it was still a good year. Bury Me in Shadows was nominated for two Anthony Awards at Bouchercon this year; it’s not the first time one person was nominated multiple times in the same year (hell, S. A. Cosby was nominated for three awards, and I think Tracy Clark was also up for two this year alone) but it’s a select group to be sure and one to which I am proud to belong. I have no way of verifying it either, but I am pretty certain it was the first time the same book was nominated in two different categories. Those were also my third and fourth Anthony nominations, which I think may also make me the most nominated queer author? It’s hard to say because they don’t have full lists of the finalists from every year anywhere, so you can’t really look it up and verify anything, so I hate to make claims that may not be true. But I think they’re true, and even if they aren’t, I am certainly one of the most nominated queer authors. The positive reception Bury Me in Shadows got on its release continued into the early part of this year as well, just as #shedeservedit came out. That one didn’t get near the attention as its predecessor, but it’s a book I am really proud of and am happy to have not only finished but published. I also finished writing A Streetcar Named Murder earlier this year, and I couldn’t be more pleased with its reception, either. I worked on other things throughout the year–short stories, some novellas, and two other novels (Chlorine and Muscles, to be precise)–and while I didn’t get a lot of stories out there and sold this year, I did sell a couple of which I am proud–one I can’t mention as it isn’t public yet, and the other being “Solace in a Dying Hour,” which I sold to an Austalian anthology and it’s a pretty damned good story. I also sold “The Rosary of Broken Promises” to an Anne Rice tribute anthology, and I still have one out on submission. “This Thing of Darkness” was in Cupid Shot Me, an anthology that was released on Valentine’s Day last year–so yeah, that’s at least four stories, and there’s another anthology that’s supposed to come out sometime this month which has my story “A Whisper from the Graveyard” in it.

I also edited the Bouchercon anthology, which took up a lot of my time between January and June. Land of 10000 Thrills is a great anthology, with some absolutely amazing contributors and great stories, and the contributors themselves were not only amazing talents but delights to work with. The anthology caused me a lot more stress than editing an anthology used to–primarily because there were so many demands on my time this past year, which I think is part of the reason I felt miserable for most of the year; my massive to-do list never seemed to get finished and always seemed to keep growing. It satisfies my OCD and need for completion to finish to-do lists, and it also subconsciously makes me think I’ve accomplished things. When tasks don’t get done because I simply don’t have the time or the energy to get to them, that makes me feel like I am failing. I also have to adjust my expectations downward, because I am older and don’t have the energy I used to have–and I really don’t want or need to start taking any kind of stimulant. I probably should cut back on the coffee, frankly.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow.

Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree

Monday morning and back to the office with me! It was a pretty good weekend, overall; I got some work done on the book, made groceries, did all kinds of chores, finished reading my Wanda Morris book and started reading another, and somehow managed to get some rest around all of that as well. I was very pleased with the work I did on the book, and who knows? Maybe I’ll even somehow manage to get it turned in by the extended deadline. #madness

And now it’s Monday morning, and I am up earlier than I need to be. I really need to focus, as a lot of things have been slipping lately as I focus on the book and getting it finished, and there’s been a kind of malaise–the feeling that usually comes along when I’ve actually finished a book, and has never before come while I was writing one. These last few years haven’t been easy for writing, to be honest, and yet–I’ve also produced some of my best work somehow during this time. I think Bury Me in Shadows is one of my best works, and while I don’t think it’s as good, #shedeservedit was also one I was terribly pleased with. And all I’ve seen anywhere for A Streetcar Named Murder has been highly positive. Land of 10000 Thrills was also one of the better anthologies I’ve done, and some of the short stories I’ve been doing during these last few years have also been really good. I also think that some of the stuff I have in progress–“Never Kiss a Stranger,” “Festival of the Redeemer,” Chlorine, Muscles, etc.–are also really good stuff. Some of the work I did this weekend is pretty damned good. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this confident in my writing before in my entire life, to be honest, but as long as I keep confidence from bleeding over into ego, I should be okay.

We watched all four episodes of Three Pines last night, and i think it’s very well done. Alfred Molina is perfect as Inspector Gamache, and while I must confess to only have read the first Louise Penny novel, Still Life, I was very impressed with it and liked it a lot (not sure why I’ve not gone back and read more of them; I do have the first three or four, but it probably has more to do with time and the massive TBR pile than anything else). I thought the show didn’t have the same feel as the books, in some ways, but it’s also a different medium and there are always changes. When I was reading the book (and again, only the first in the series so I am hardly an expert on Penny’s writing or her series) I like the town, and enjoyed my visit there. It was a nice, quirky, small town–but translating that to the screen is an entirely different ball of wax. I think the producers and writers decided that because the show is about murder, it needed to be a little darker, and Three Pines comes across as a small town full of eccentrics in the show, more like Twin Peaks, Picket Fences, and Northern Exposure than Penny’s creation….but I think it was a smart direction to go with the show. Penny’s strength is offsetting the charm of the town against the darkness of the crimes committed there, and I don’t know how well Penny’s vision could have translated to the screen any better. We both really liked it. We also watched a true crime documentary about Charlie Cullen, the killer nurse–which was creepy as fuck.

I’m hoping against hope that this good feeling will last all week. I’m going to have to stop and make groceries on the way home from the office–heavy sigh–but no need to swing around uptown for the mail until tomorrow. I have to remember to buy a shipping envelope to mail a copy of Streetcar to the winner of the drawing from Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen–I should add that to my to-do list…which I need to make a new copy of it. The problem is I don’t remember everything I am supposed to be doing, and I need to get back into the habit of making a new list every weekend so things don’t get lost.

I also spent some more time with Nelson Algren’s (I was spelling it wrong in the last blog) bleak A Walk on the Wild Side, which I am enjoying but isn’t precisely a quick read by any chance. It reminds vaguely of another novel set in the same time period, A Garden of Sand by Earl Thompson, which I’ve started any number of times but have never managed to get very far into because it is also not an easy read. I am going to try to devote an hour to reading every night–an hour a day is far better than what I’ve been doing, which hasn’t been helping to budge the TBR pile at all–and I think tonight we are going to finally start watching Wednesday. I’ve been reluctant to jump into it, despite the great reviews, because the Christina Ricci version from the 90’s films was, at least for me, definitive. But we keep hearing good things about the show as well as Jenna Ortega’s performance in the lead, so I think tonight will be the night we take the plunge.

It rained all day yesterday–it was even raining when I went to pick up the groceries–and it seems a bit gray outside this morning as well. I have a lot of emails to write and a lot of emails to answer and all kinds of stuff to do today–one of the reasons I got up an hour earlier than I needed to this morning–so I am trying to be proactive and not laze in bed the way I usually do on the mornings when I don’t have to get up at six. I am getting used to getting up early for the first time ever in my life, and quite frankly, I don’t like it. But I also don’t see the clinic hours being changed any time soon, either; I fear my afternoon/early evening shifts are a thing of the remote past now.

And on that note, I have quite a bit to do today, so it’s perhaps best that I make another cup of coffee, some toast, and dive right in. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader.

It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Ah, yes, time for hot men in Christmas clothing. I usually wait and just do the twelve days of Christmas thematically here, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to figure that out. And why not do an extra couple of days of holiday cheer? We could always use more cheer and happiness and joy in this sometimes grim and grotesque world and life. Today is going to be dedicated to three things: more work on my book, picking up the groceries I ordered, and making potato-leek soup. I’m also going to spend some time this morning reading. I finished Wanda Morris’ marvelous Anywhere You Run yesterday, and started Nelson Ahlgren’s A Walk on the Wild Side. Someone on Facebook had posted they were going to watch the film (starring Barbara Stanwyck and Jane Fonda) and I, who have never seen it, vaguely remembered it was connected to New Orleans. I did some research and yes, sure enough, it was indeed a novel first; and since it’s about the demimonde here in the 1930’s, I figured it was a necessary read for my understanding of the past of the city and perhaps even a needed read for the canon of New Orleans fiction. No one ever talks about this book in connection with the city, maybe because Ahlgren wasn’t a native? One can never be completely sure, can one? So, I will probably read some of that for about an hour–I like the idea of dedicating one hour every day to reading; maybe that will help me get through the ever-growing TBR pile. I know I wanted to do some Christmas reading–I am saving Donna Andrews’ Dashing Through the Snowbirds for Christmas day as a gift to myself–and I have some Christmas crime short story collections on hand as well, so I could do a story a day–maybe that will be what I do for the Twelve Days? Not a bad idea.

I slept well last night, which was a lovely experience–Scooter cuddled and purred with my for most of the night, which helped me enormously; making us doze off is truly his super-power–and woke up at a decent hour this morning. I think I am going to be able to get a lot more work done on the book than I did yesterday. It’s finally taking shape and I know where I am going with it along the way now, so I have to revise and redo the first half of the book to get it in line with how the final act will play out. I got started on it yesterday, and the story makes a lot more sense now than it did (and that is not me being hard on myself, either; what I had already done wasn’t badly written, it was just disjointed and had a lot of info dumps that have to be put into the story in a more organic way). I pulled up Spotify yesterday and listened to music while I worked on the book–Paul wasn’t home–which was cool. I listened to the Liza Minnelli that was produced by the Pet Shop Boys (it is truly outstanding; give it a listen sometime) and then cycled through some Pet Shop Boys albums as that was clearly the musical theme of the day. Paul will be home today, so I’ll probably just put in my ear buds and listen that way–I’d forgotten what a difference having music on makes to my writing and productivity.

We watched another true crime documentary last night, The Lost Boys of Bucks County, which–similar to the ones we were watching about the Murtaugh family–shows again the difference in how the law treats the wealthy and powerful as opposed to people that are considered unimportant and disposable. “They were just trash to be thrown away,” someone said towards the end of this sad story, in which four young men were pointlessly murdered over the course of three days. I’ve been thinking about–toying with, teasing it around inside my brain for quite some time–writing a suburban serial killer in the 1970’s book, based on the suburb where I lived for five years and the life people lived there, and then grafting a serial killer based on Houston’s Candyman onto the story. I’d been calling it Where the Boys Die for quite some time now, which I don’t think is the right title for this story; Where the Boys Die is a spring-break revenge spree killing story, and I think this one should be The Summer of Lost Boys or something along those lines. I know, I know, I talk about books I want to write all the time and never seem to get around to…but I think 2023 is going to be the year of finishing things that aren’t finished and getting them out of the way. Groan, that’s going to be a lot of work…but the kind of work I love doing, so there’s also that–and yes, I am well aware that I always have to force myself to do things I love. What can I say? I love being lazy and doing nothing the most out of everything.

When I was at home for Thanksgiving, my recently retired brother-in-law asked me what my plans for Retirement were. I know what he was really asking–my family is nothing if not predictable (are you going to move up here to be close to us once you no longer have a job? because it does not compute to any of them on any level that it’s not my job that anchors me in New Orleans. I live here because I choose to live in New Orleans, and I love it here. They can’t imagine making any such decision that would keep them out of the bosom of the family deliberately.)–but I chose to respond with “Well, I can’t wait for it to come. Counting the days” and he replied, “Oh, you’re in for a big surprise–you might want to hold your horses a bit on that.” He meant well, and I know what he meant; he’s been bored since he retired and the adjustment to not having to be somewhere for a set amount of time Monday through Friday hasn’t been easy. It wasn’t easy for my father, either–still isn’t. They, and other men of their generations, were conditioned to work and to identify their selves with their job and the work. That isn’t me. I love my job, don’t get me wrong–it’s the perfect fit for me on every level, and even now the only thing I don’t like about it is we no longer have non-traditional hours. I miss not having to be at the office until eleven most of the week and having my mornings free to get things done before going into the office, and not having to be in bed by ten most nights. The only thing I truly dislike about my job is the forty hours I have to spend working at it–because I would much rather be utilizing that time to write. Will I be bored when I retire? Probably not. I am never bored and can always find something to do. There’s the TBR pile, for example, and I am always writing something anyway. There’s a shit ton of classic films for me to work my way through, and other films and television shows I would love to rewatch and revisit.

And there’s always going to be books to read, errands to run, dishes to wash, clothes to launder, and so on. I’d also probably go to the gym with a higher degree of frequency as well.

So, no, I won’t be bored when I retire from my day job. I’ll probably wind up working even harder once I do retire.

And now I am going to read for an hour, and get back to work on the book. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.