Category: documentaries

In the Gold Dust Rush

Hoping to get another “adult content” warning on Twitter with today’s post picture. I’ve been getting them a lot lately; trying to figure out what precisely sets off the prudish bigoted algorithm? I’ve certainly enjoyed being told by Twitter services that derogatory slurs aren’t a violation of their new Musk-like terms of service. Twitter was always a shitshow, but while it did raise my blood pressure on occasion for the most part I enjoyed engaging with friends on there; but since the Muscadine takeover, it’s not even fun to use for the sake of simple entertainment. I am really curious how people think he’s some kind of genius businessman. Dudes, he inherited a fucking emerald mine. GENIUS.

Honestly.

But it’s Wednesday and Pay the Bills Day again; always a joy and pleasure. But at least I can pay them, as I always like to remind myself when the horror of paying the bills rolls around every two weeks. I am hoping to get further caught up on paying the bills down (or off, what a precious dream that is!) this summer; I’m getting my teeth fixed in September and that’s not going to be free or cheap, and you don’t even want to know how much my hearing aids are going to cost. So, paying down the debt is very important because I am about to be taking on a lot more of it, alas. But I am happy to get my mouth taken care of, and hearing…well, it can wait a little longer because I am not entirely sure not being able to hear 100% is necessarily a bad thing anymore. I haven’t slept well this week, and feel tired and achy this morning. I still have this bug or whatever it is that Paul gave me over the weekend, but now that I’ve been awake awhile I am feeling somewhat better than I did when I first arose from the shallow depths of Morpheus this morning. I hate waking up and spending the first few moments out of bed coughing and gagging, but…I do feel better now. Just tired and achy a bit this morning. The COVID test yesterday was negative, thank you, baby Jesus, so whatever this is, probably has something to do with summer cold/heat wave/barometric pressure fucking with my sinuses.

LSU won again last night, beating Tennessee, but now in order to stay in the College World Series they have to beat Wake Forest twice, since they lost to them the other night. The score was 3-2, so it was close and LSU led most of the game, so there’s a chance they can do it. It’s really now just a matter of seeing who Florida is going to play for the championship, either LSU or Wake Forest. Gah.

I got some more work done yesterday on the book–I need to get a lot more done, as I am way behind now–but I am thinking I can iron these thorny problems out mostly today, and thus get it turned in. Obviously, I wanted to get it in already but being sick and not sleeping isn’t helping. Hopefully tonight I’ll be so exhausted that I’ll have a lovely nice deep sleep tonight. One can hope, anyway. We finished watching the 100 Years of Warner Brothers documentary last night–I still think cramming the first fifty or sixty years of the studio’s history into one episode (which didn’t even mention Joan Crawford!) was a mistake, but it was also produced in house for HBO MAX, so…it’s a fluffy promo piece. We then watched the third season premiere of The Righteous Gemstones, which was okay, and this week’s episode of Platonic, which is one of the funniest shows currently airing. I am really becoming a very big fan of Rose Byrne, who is excellent in everything she does and can play a wide range of characters and styles and is perfectly at home in any of them.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I will check in on you again tomorrow.

Five Ten Fiftyfold

Tuesday and back to the office with me today blog.

Yesterday was a bit of an off day for me; I didn’t feel good for most of the day. Paul’s been sick since Thursday–coughing, lots of congestion and post nasal drip–to how crappy I felt yesterday was at least not as bad as he was at his worst; and this morning I feel fine. Not sure if it was some twenty-four hour thing, but hope that feeling better lasts through the rest of the day. We had some amazing thunderstorms last night while I was sleeping; it’s kind of gray and icky looking outside right now. The forecast is the usual–hot, humid, chance of thunderstorm–so I’m hoping my sinuses remain under control for the rest of the day as well.

Yesterday morning I finished reading Chris Clarkson’s delightful That Summer Night on Frenchmen Street, which I really enjoyed, and have selected Megan Abbott’s Beware the Woman as my next read. I’m not sure when I’m going to have the time to actually spend reading it thoroughly and enjoying it–probably will go with me to Kentucky as my “before I go to sleep” read. LSU lost a heartbreaker to Wake Forest yesterday 3-2, so now have to fight their way back out of the losers’ bracket if they want to win the College World Series. Hope springs eternal for an LSU fan–we did break the Jello Shot Record at Rocco’s yesterday–but I’m just delighted they made it to the World Series this year. GEAUX TIGERS!

I have some more work to do on this manuscript before I turn it in. This is the revising/fixing phase of the edits; where I have to do the more macro things. I had hoped to get this done yesterday but I wasn’t feeling well, and as such couldn’t really focus the way I needed to–I did try, of course–so tonight after I run my errands on the way home from work (there’s always something, really) I hope to sit down and bang out the rest of this to get it finished and out of my hair and out of my way. We started watching a documentary series about the history of Warner Brothers last night, which is always fun; I always like learning more about Hollywood history. The documentary didn’t really provide me with anything new or insightful about the history of the studio, other than further confirmation that Jack Warner was an asshole. There are two more parts, so that takes care of our television watching needs for this evening, at the very least. I figure with show episodes dropping this week and me being gone next week will help our shows build up back episodes to watch.

It’s also weird that it’s Tuesday already. I feel like I am going to be off this entire week because of it, then I’m out of the office for a week, and then I come back to the abbreviated 4th of July holiday week. As much as I love having extra time off, it’s always a weird week when the work week is truncated this way; I always feel kind of somehow off my game no matter what. But it’s a short week, I’m off next, and I need to get organized. I need a to-do list, most importantly, and to figure out where I’m at with everything. I always have this tendency to be as laser-focused as someone with (undiagnosed) ADHD can be; which means the book is the biggest priority and everything else is an incredible inconvenience that I don’t pay much attention to other than the occasional yeah yeah I know I need to work on you, but give me a minute.

Despite not feeling well yesterday–I also was feverish most of the day–I was able to get chores done around the house so it looks a little neater and a little less fraternity dorm room. I do want to drop books off for the library sale this coming weekend before leaving town, and I also want to get the car washed and cleaned out–chores for Saturday! Huzzah! I think we’re doing an escape room team bonding thing on Friday morning and then having lunch, then I can go home and do data entry–woo-hoo! It doesn’t get much more exciting than that, does it? And then of course Sunday it’s up to Alabama to meet Dad. I had a bad day one day last week about Mom; when the grief came back and I wasn’t able to reason or breathe or mind-clear my way out of it, so I just gave in and had a nice, good cry for a few minutes, and then I was able to get moving again. It’s been four months since we lost Mom, and I don’t think it’s something I’ll ever get used to but rather something I will gradually just be able to live with. I don’t think any of us can expect more than that, really.

And on that note I am heading out in the thick heavy air of a hot summer day in June. I’ll catch you later, Constant Reader; hope you have a lovely day.

Glass Candle Grenades

Monday and a holiday; it’s lovely to have another day at home to work on these edits, which I am hoping against hope to complete today. Yesterday was lovely and relaxing; I worked on the micro edits–the lines/copy edit–which is always a long and tedious process. The macro edit, to me, is more fun if more creatively taxing. I’ll be digging into that a little later, when my mind is more awake and I have more caffeine in my system. It’ll be a weird and short work week for me, and then of course next week I am on vacation. I’ll be taking lots of books with me on that trip, although I’m not sure I’ll have much time to read. I’m not really sure what Dad and I will be doing in Kentucky. I know when I’ve been up there before he’s mentioned going sight-seeing; like to Cassius Clay’s home (the original, the one Muhammed Ali was named for at birth; he was Henry Clay’s brother and one of Kentucky’s leading abolitionists) or to the Kentucky Derby museum. Which is fine, I love history and while horse racing history isn’t something I’ve ever looked into much before, but you never know. I had thought about writing a mystery around the horse racing at the Fairgrounds…I knew a horse trainer back in the day–but never got around to it. I mean, Dick Francis kind of cornered the horse racing mystery market, did he not?

Of course, I’ll come home to another short week because of the 4th holiday, too–so it’s going to be three weeks before i do another full five day work-week. I slept decently last night–not great, but not bad, either–and so this morning feel a little bit dragging around, but that’s fine; coffee, a shower, and some time reading should get me over the hump. We abandoned City on Fire last night; we just had no enthusiasm for watching, and so moved on to The House of Hammer, which is about, of course, the twisted history of the Hammers through the lens of Armie Hammer, the actor, getting canceled for his abusive sexual preferences. It was interesting–I am always fascinated by twisted rich families that hate each other so passionately–but we need to find something meaty, like a good crime series, to dig into. It’s amazing how we can hve so many options yet can never find anything to watch, isn’t it?

I spent some time yesterday with Chris Clarkson’s adorable That Summer Night on Frenchmen Street, which is charming and fun and delightful to read, and may even be able to finish reading it today, with any luck and some strong motivation, at any rate. I think from that I will move on to either Megan Abbott or Eli Cranor; I can’t decide which of the plethora of great 2023 new releases to select from, to be honest. I know I’ll be listening to Carol Goodman in the car next weekend on the way up and I’m not sure who I’ll listen to on the way home.

A quick glance at Twitter has shown me that LSU fans have now surpassed eleven thousand shots in the Rocco’s College World Series Shot Competition, and are well on pace to break the record (just over eighteen thousand) set by Mississippi last year. Oh, how the bars and restaurants in Eauxmaha must love LSU fans! I mean, even if the shots are only a dollar, that’s over eleven grand in receipts on those shots alone, not counting everything else being sold there. LSU is playing Wake Forest tonight, and it will take a strong effort for the Tigers to pull off the win. If they do pull out a win, I’m thinking the shots record will fall tonight.

I also read an old short story yesterday that I remember from when I was a kid. Periodically, Mom let me join a book club. The first one I joined was the Mystery Guild, and those selections i received from the Mystery Guild really kind of shaped my future both as a reader and writer. I still remember the books–still have some of the original copies–and over the years, I’ve tried to replace the ones lost over time to cross-country moves. Recently I repurchased a copy of Alfred Hitchcock Presents a Month of Mystery on eBay, and there was a story in it I read as a kid that I never forgot; and I wanted to reread it. It was called “The Queen’s Jewel” and was written by Robert Golding (I’d forgotten the name of the author). I took the book down yesterday afternoon to reread the story, and it was amazing to me how much of it I still remembered, the details. The main character, Jane Farquhar, owns a small hotel of sorts with guest cabins in the brush in Africa. One of her ancestors was a server for the imprisoned Mary Queen of Scots, and before her execution she gave him the pendant of a ruby set in a heavy gold chain with four carat blue-white diamonds surrounding it. It is very valuable, and Jane’s father raised her to be prepared, always be prepared, because someone will eventually come to try to steal it from her in some way…and thus the story is about her defending herself against a criminal pretending to be an American cousin. The story holds up and works, but it opens with Jane discovering the body of her poisoned guard dog–which did make me wonder, would this story be published today? Opening with a dead dog?

I also didn’t know much about Robert Golding, so after reading the story I used the google to find out he was one of the many Ellery Queen ghostwriters (I only recently found out that many Ellery Queen novels were ghostwritten) and it turned out Golding wrote two of my favorite Ellery Queen novels, The Player on the Other Side and Calamity Town, which is one of my all-time favorite mystery novels; little wonder his short story connected so well with me. I don’t remember The Player on the Other Side other than that it was one of my favorites; but Calamity Town? I remember a lot of that novel, and it was primarily about the Wrights, the first family of Wrightsville–a location so popular that Queen kept returning there for more murder mysteries (The Murderer is a Fox was another great Wrightsville mystery). He also apparently wrote a lot of the juvenile Ellery Queen mysteries–published as Ellery Queen Jr.–which I also enjoyed as a kid; Ellery Queen Jr. and the Jim Hutton 1970’s television series Ellery Queen (which I loved) were what originally brought me to reading the adult Ellery Queens; the first I read was the one they actually filmed for the pilot, The Fourth Side of the Triangle, which was marvelous, and then I started buying his books or checking them out from the library. So thank you, Robert Golding, for being an influence on me and my writing without my knowing it. I’m really looking forward to reading some more of these old short stories. I got another Hitchcock (Alfred Hitchcock Presents Stories to Be Read with the Door Locked) and an old MWA one, edited by Robert L. Fish, With Malice Toward All, which also looks rather fun.

And on that note, I think I am going to head into the spice mines and read for a bit while my brain continues to wake up before tackling the manuscript. Have a lovely holiday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check back in with you later.

The Hollow Men

Sunday and the midpoint of the holiday weekend, as New Orleans swelters in what is, even for here, an unusually potent June heat wave. I stayed inside as much as I could yesterday, in the marvelous cool of the Lost Apartment. I slept well Friday night, which was great, and while I wasn’t feeling especially motivated yesterday morning, I did get my daily blog entry done as well as a Pride post. I read more of That Summer Night on Frenchmen Street, which is just absolutely charming (you should get a copy, Constant Reader), and then I did some more cleaning chores around the house before digging into the edits of this manuscript. I got the macro edit along with the copy edit, so I can get it all worked through, hopefully this weekend; I would love to be able to get this to the editor on Monday. We shall see how it goes. I did get some progress made yesterday; we’ll see how things go today. Yesterday was kind of nice, actually. I got some rest, too–today I feel really rested–and we finished watching Butchers of the Bayou, got caught up on The Crowded Room, and started watching City on Fire, which…is interesting, but I guess we’re supposed to believe Manhattan is an incredibly small town? It’s based on an “it” book from a couple of years ago that I never read; I had a copy but eventually donated it in one of my many purges. I’m not sure we’ll continue watching, to be honest; it’s okay but not riveting. There was no disappointment last night when I called the evening after a couple of episodes.

LSU won their game yesterday at the College World Series (GEAUX TIGERS!). We watched part of the game before switching over to The Crowded Room once I was sure the Tigers had the game under control. I have to say, it’s very fun living in Louisiana and being a sports fan. I of course always will root for any team based in Louisiana, with the Saints and LSU having my deepest loyalties, but part of the fun is how different Louisiana sports fans are from fans in other parts of the country. Tiger Stadium and the Superdome can get loud enough that it hurts your ears, but the thing I love the most about Louisiana sports fans is that they are also fans when it’s not easy, if that makes sense? It’s why Saints players become so attached to New Orleans; we’ll turn out to welcome them home from away games at the airport even when they lose. When the Saints were in the Super Bowl, the city of New Orleans decided to have a Saints parade that Tuesday night before the second weekend of Carnival, where they won or lost; a celebration if they won and a thank you for a great season and making it to the Super Bowl if they lost. Maybe the turn out for that parade might not have been quite the mob scene it was had they not won, but I like to think that it would have been pretty close to the same thing. I also love all the stories about how Omaha (which we’re calling Eauxmaha the way we always Louisiana-ize everything) loves our fans and hope we make it to the College World Series every year. There’s a bar in Omaha that has a shots contest for all the fans of the teams there–LSU is of course way out in front of second place, and at one point you could combine the other seven schools and LSU still won. It also reminds me of how when LSU played Oklahoma in the 2019 college football play-offs in Atlanta, a lot of the bars around the hotels and stadium ran out of beer and bourbon the first night (this was NOT a problem when LSU played in New Orleans for the national championship; New Orleans never runs out because we’re Louisiana too). I also imagine that the servers and bartenders must make a ton of money in tips from LSU fans, who are also as generous as they are friendly. (I was also thinking the other day as I rewatched highlights of this past year’s LSU-Alabama game, what a night for recruiting that must have been! As a high school football player, visiting Tiger Stadium on a night like that, when the entire stadium was rocking (the stadium’s reactions to the over time touchdown and the two point conversion both registered on the campus Richter machine), how could you not sign with LSU? I’m trying not to get overly optimistic for football season, but LSU and the Saints (and Tulane, even) are poised to have great seasons.

Fingers crossed!

It looks kind of hazy outside the windows this morning. The heat advisory/heat wave is supposed to last until Tuesday; I’ve not checked the weather yet this morning to see how bad today is going to be. AH, yes, heat advisory, partly cloudy, and the potential for a severe thunderstorm later this afternoon. I was hoping to barbecue today, so here’s hoping the thunderstorm either holds off until I do or is over before I want to. I’m not going to run errands until after work on Tuesday, on my way home from the office. We have plenty of stuff on hand to eat without me having to go to the store, and I’m not going to be getting a lot when I do make a grocery run because I will be out of the house all next week. The reason I am coming back on the following Saturday is so that I can do a grocery run before heading to work on Monday.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday of your holiday weekend, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back before you know it.

Speak No Evil

Well, if there was any doubt left, summer has returned in full force to New Orleans. It’s a heat wave; in which the heat index has been over 110 for several days. When I ran my errands yesterday I was completely exhausted after getting back home and the groceries inside; this kind of heat saps your strength and your energy and sometimes, even your will to live. Opening the apartment door was like opening a preheated oven. I managed to get all my work-at-home duties taken care of, but tried to spend the rest of the day battling feeling tired and getting chores done. This is a three-day weekend, and I have a lot of work to try to get through over the course of this holiday weekend. I am also hoping to not set foot outside at any time until I have to go back to work Tuesday morning. It’s nice having another short work week, and then of course the next week I am heading north to spend some time with Dad. It’s hard to believe this year is nearly half over, isn’t it?

I was thinking yesterday that Elmore Leonard’s most famous piece of writing advice was “never start with the weather,” which is a “rule” that I break all the fucking time. The weather, especially in New Orleans, is almost a character here; it tells you everything you need to know about the time of year the story is set, for one thing. You can’t set a book or story in New Orleans in the summer time and not mention the weather; you just can’t. The weather impacts everything here, because we have what I lovingly and sort-of-jokingly refer to as “aggressive.” The heat and humidity is aggressive; hurricanes and thunderstorms here certainly are, and even the cold spells we get every winter (brief, always brief) can be also considered aggressive. It impacts people’s moods and what happens, really; so that advice cannot be followed when writing about New Orleans. I was primarily thinking about this yesterday when I was out in the heat and losing my will to live, mostly, which was completely understandable. Paul walked to the gym to ride the bike for a while yesterday and went through two bottles of water. So, yes, the weather here is aggressive and oppressive, and impacts story and character and setting and scene and place in New Orleans.

We started watching an ID true crime documentary series about the serial killers in Baton Rouge around the turn of the century and just after, Butchers on the Bayou, which is kind of interesting. I remember when it was happening–yes, a serial killer in Baton Rouge will make the news in New Orleans–and I remember when the first one was caught; I didn’t remember there was a second one operating at the same time. No wonder the police were overwhelmed; especially with all the crossing of jurisdictions and so forth–it’s the same problem they had with trying to solve the murders of the Jeff Davis Eight (eight women murdered over a several year period in Jefferson Davis Parish). And yes, I do at some point want to base a novel on the Jeff Davis Eight case; I keep thinking it fits more as a Chanse story but I’m not really sure I want to write another Chanse book. It wouldn’t really work as a Scotty story, and I have wondered and considered writing a new series–I have a character, Jerry Channing, who writes true crime and is a gay man that has appeared in several different books of mine; the problem with Jerry was when I was fleshing him out I realized what I was doing was combining Chanse and Scotty into a single person, and that wasn’t working for me. This also probably had something to do with me trying to come up with something whilst I was immersed in numerous other projects and not really being able to give it my full attention. I still might just go ahead and do it once I have all these current projects off my plate once and for all.

It is a good story, and it makes sense for him to be the one to investigate it–since he writes true crime. My primary concern about this is, obviously, there’s tons of novels about true crime podcasts and true crime writers and bloggers–Only Murders in the Building, anyone?–but it does make sense and works better. I guess there’s naught to do but give it a try and see.

I’m hoping to be able to spend some time reading this morning, too, before i head into the spice mines. I want to finish writing this and maybe write another Pride post over the course of the weekend; I’ve started several, but am trying to decide if I want to be Angry or if I want to be up-lifting. Some of the posts are angry–it’s hard to write about homophobia you’ve experienced without getting angry; and in one of them I am calling out homophobia I’ve personally experienced from the mainstream crime community. Sometimes I wonder if I should call this stuff out; there’s a part of me that sees talking about it and calling it out as vengeful–like ha ha ha, you were awful to me so now I am calling you out years later–and there’s a part of me that worries that I’ll come across as self-serving. (There’s nothing I hate more than the narcissistic activist; those who are only in it for themselves and don’t care about the broader picture and the macro.) I’ve known and seen some of this over the years more times than I’d care to–like the author who was all over #ownvoices, until she won a major award and now no longer mentions it at all, or “we need diverse books”–so, now that you’ve made it the work no longer needs to be done? Way to pull up the ladder behind you, sister! I certainly don’t want anyone to think that my primary concern is revenge or for me to become more successful; my mentality is “this happened to me and I don’t want it to happen to anyone else because it really sucked for me.” But times have changed, and while there are still instances of it that pop up from time to time within the community, it’s becoming a thing of the past and people are starting to call it out when they see it–which is a huge switch from when I was first getting started. The crime fiction community is a lot more welcoming to queer people in 2023 than it was in 2002. It’s lovely, of course, but I do think we should never forget our less progressive past–particularly since it wasn’t that fucking long ago.

Some things for me to ponder, I suppose.

And on that note, I am going to drink some more coffee and do some chores around the kitchen before I read for a bit and then work. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again at some point.

Blood Bitch

Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment.

The ZOOM thing I had to do yesterday went well; I am always self-conscious about these things. But I got to read from #shedeservedit, which I hadn’t done before, and it was lovely to be able to say that it was nominated for both Agatha and Anthony Awards. As Constant Reader is obviously aware, I don’t really boast or brag or broadcast about good things that happen to me, but damn it, I’m going to for just a goddamned minute. I can’t say for sure that #shedeservedit was the first queer book to get an Agatha nomination, but I can say for sure it’s one of the few that ever have–and I feel very confident in saying it was definitely the first time a book from a queer press has been nominated. Bury Me in Shadows might not have been the first queer book nominated for an Anthony, but it was certainly the first queer one to be nominated in two different categories. Last year’s Best Paperback Original category for the Anthonys was the first time two queer books by two queer writers from two different queer presses were nominated (shout out to the amazing Cheryl Head, who shared the honor with me!). I am also one of the few authors to be nominated in two different categories at the Anthonys in the same year; this year saw me become of the few authors ever nominated in three different categories in the same year.

When I actually take the time to stop and think about it, it’s actually pretty fucking amazing and groundbreaking. I certainly never saw any of that in my crystal ball, or would have ever dared to dream about that happening. I’ve also been nominated for a Macavity, a Shirley Jackson, a Lefty, an Agatha, and a total of seven nominations from the Anthonys (I did win the first time I was nominated, for Best Anthology for Blood on the Bayou), which is a pretty nice resume, really; I’d be super-impressed by those credentials if they belonged to someone else, so why am I so reluctant, cautious, scared to take pride in my own accomplishments? It’s one thing to be self-deprecatory about your writing and your career, but awards are something you have no control over, so why not take pride in them? If the mentality I was raised with was “be humble and let other people acknowledge your work” why can’t I be proud of myself when other people are acknowledging my work?

Heavy heaving sigh.

I slept well again last night. Paul got home late and I spent most of the evening reading nonfiction. I was very tired most of the day yesterday, but got chores done around the work-at-home duties and thus the apartment isn’t a complete and utter disaster area this morning. I do have a load of dishes to put away and have some more things in the sink that need to go into the dishwasher, but overall the kitchen/office is in pretty good shape this morning (the living room is an entirely different story, of course). Today is Gay Pride, and Saints and Sinners has a booth, so Paul will be gone most of the day. Yes, I am not going to Pride again this year, because i have to stay home and get all of this work done, or at least progressed a bit further. It’s going to be hot as hell out there, but I have the entire apartment to myself for almost the entire day, which never happens, so I need to take full advantage of this opportunity. I’d like to get caught up with several chapters revised today; have to look over another manuscript, and I want to get some reading done today. I am probably also going to take some time to answer some emails and try to get the inbox emptied out. I also need to write another Pride post–but I don’t want to write about anything negative, so maybe I’ll go finish one of my “wistful memories about the past” posts; I’ve started several of these and it would be kind of fun to finish them; at least fun for me; I never know if any of my Constant Readers find these entries fun. In a way, it’s kind of like working on my memoirs, and just remembering things the way I remember them–whether I remember correctly or not–is okay for a blog post, methinks. Posts about gay joy are a lot more fun than the ones about what it’s like to be oppressed.

And maybe later I can get caught up on Superman and Lois, which I forgot that I was watching. Whoops! Not sure why this season didn’t grab me the way the previous ones did; the Jonathon Kent recasting kind of threw me off a bit, but that’s really not fair to the replacement actor now, is it? No, not really. And I should spend some time with the book I’m reading today as well, so I can finish it because really great books (the one I am reading is also great, make no mistake) but this is what I have on deck now: Beware the Woman by Megan Abbott; All the Sinners Bleed by S. A. Cosby; The Hunt by Kelly J. Ford; Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper; and Ozark Dogs by Eli Cranor (lots of Southern Gothic there, which is delightful, to say the least) and there’s also these old anthologies I ordered from eBay. I need to write a lot today; I’ll probably did into the next chapter as soon as I finish this and do some filing to clear my mind and get it ready to write fiction.

Writing about my award short-lists had me thinking once again about what to do with my papers. The thought of having to catalogue them myself is unpleasant and means it would never get done (why is there no ebook of Jackson Square Jazz, Greg?), and I had pretty much come around to the point of view that I could easily just throw it all away but thinking about the award recognition made me question that decision all over again. But…while the blog itself only shines a light on a very carefully curated (right?) segment of my life, I also talk about writing and so forth on here, so future scholars (should my post turn of the century career be of any interest to any such future scholars) can always just come here and read to learn about me. My papers are just manuscripts, anyway; marked up and revised and scribbled all over–and I have most of that as a digital record, anyway. So, yes, that makes the most sense, and the project for this summer will be getting rid of all this paper hanging around here and up in the attic and over in the storage place. Besides, I’m not that interesting, really. I don’t think I am an influential voice in queer crime writing, either, and probably within a few years of my mandated-by-will cremation, will be most likely forgotten. I am actually fine with that, to be honest; very few writers from every generation are remembered–probably less than ten percent from every period, really; and whether or not I helped raise the bar for queer crime writers isn’t for me to say.

And besides, the thing I am most likely going to be remembered for is longevity, anyway, and I am fine with that.

Which sounds like a lovely place to segue into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I will be back at some point.

I Wear Your Ring

Monday and back to the office with me this morning. Woo-hoo! The excitement never stops, does it? I slept pretty well last night–well enough to not want to get up this morning–and so feel a bit groggy this morning. I’m not certain how busy we’ll be at work today, but I am hoping it will be an easy day. Yesterday wasn’t a bad dat; I managed to make progress on the book, got some things done around the house, and we watched the new Arnold Schwarzenegger Netflix show FUBAR, which was entertaining enough. In some ways, the show almost feels like a sequel to True Lies, in which he played a spy whose wife had no idea what he actually did for a living. This show takes that premise to its next logical conclusion, should the wife never find out she’s married to a spy. It had some funny moments, has a really good cast, and high production values. This week the Vanderpump Rules final reunion episode airs, but some of my shows–Ted Lasso, sob–are completed. Not sure what we will be watching next–I imagine I’ll be watching the Randall scandal documentary (more Vanderpump Rules drama) at some point, but not terribly sure that’s something Paul will want to watch.

I didn’t read a lot this weekend; the little writing I was able to do, along with other miniscule irritations over the course of the weekend, managed to tire out my brain to the point where being able to focus on reading wasn’t likely. Progress is progress, after all, and maybe I’m a bit behind my usual schedule, or the one I was trying to keep with it, but it will get completed on time, methinks.

I have my dates and everything all screwed up again; I keep thinking it’s later in June than it actually is. Part of that has to do with the usual “working on a book so not paying attention to dates” thing I inevitably get caught up in, and I imagine the rest has to do with the year being very off-balance for me thus far. I handed over MWA in the middle of January, whilst in the midst of revising two of my own books while editing another, and then Mom died and then it was the festivals and then Malice and now suddenly it’s June, which doesn’t seem real–and I am going back up north the last week of this month. I’d wanted to take a week off this summer just to work on things around the house–purging the attic, for one, and doing a deep, thorough cleaning for another–but looks like that time is going to be burnt being there for my dad. There are, of course, worse things to burn off your vacation time with; and it’s nice feeling closer to my father. I just hate the reason behind it, you know?

At least the Internet is continuing to work for me at home. (Probably just jinxed that.)

It apparently rained overnight; part of the reason I slept so well, probably, and so today is one of those weird mornings where it feels cool because the humidity hasn’t fully recharged yet from the rain.

I’m also trying to decide what my next Pride month entry should be. I’ve got a couple already going–one about being confronted by homophobia within the mystery publishing community–but I find myself hesitant to post it because of not wanting to be “that gay”, which is stupid. If I don’t call out homophobia where and when I see it, I am contributing to the problem. I guess I should be a little less concerned with hurting people’s feelings, or something? I don’t know. But I am heading into the spice mines this morning, and will check in with you later. Maybe there will be a “homophobia in crime fiction” entry posted later, you never know…but one thing for sure, I will be back tomorrow morning.

Fotzepolitic

Sunday morning and things went about as well as could be expected yesterday. Friday evening I had some items delivered from Sam’s Club, but hadn’t noticed that one of the items ordered actually had to be shipped; it arrived this morning here at the Lost Apartment. And while I was waiting for my Cox cable technician to arrive (I rearranged the entire morning to accommodate their 10-12 am window), I got a text message at 11:30 informing me that my appointment was cancelled; then came the email stating we know things happen! Reach out and reschedule! I reached out, only to be told that the technician arrived, called, got voicemail, and departed DESPITE MY HAVING GIVEN THE SAME INSTRUCTIONS I ALWAYS GIVE: OUR BUZZER DOESN’T WORK SO YOU HAVE TO CALL OR TEXT WHEN YOU ARRIVE.

Also, I had my phone with me all morning, so I wouldn’t miss the call. No one called, I have no recents, and I have no voicemails.

This obviously threw me off my game yesterday for writing, but I did get some done. I am a bit behind on the schedule I’d given myself, but I think it’s going to go relatively easily from now on. I ran some errands, came home, got cleaned up, and dove into the writing. I wasn’t really able to shake off the mood, so after struggling for a few hours to get the chapter done, I called it a day and repaired to my easy chair. Needing to cleanse my soul, I did a rewatch binge of the first episodes of Ted Lasso, which are even more charming on rewatch because you get to see all the callbacks you might have forgotten about later in the run of the show, like Keeley acknowledging that she “dated a 23 year old footballer when she was seventeen, only now I’m thirty and I’m still dating 23 year old footballers” while talking to Rebecca. You can almost see the light come on in her eyes–what the hell am I doing–which kind of opens the door for her breaking up with Jamie later. Even though they don’t know each other well, she recognizes that it’s time for her to grow-up and start thinking about her own future, while talking to Rebecca–which is the first building block in their close friendship. Then later, when Paul was finished working for the day we watched Bama Rush, which was kind of disappointing. Originally focusing on four girls about to go through sorority rush at the University of Alabama–which I guess is this viral thing on TikTok–it got a bit derailed with the director started seeing similarities in behavior of the girls planning to go through rush as she went through being a lifelong alopecia sufferer…which could have been made a lot more interesting, but I always thought the point of a documentary was the director didn’t make themselves a part of the story? I think the point she was trying to make was valid, but the way the documentary was a edited together simply didn’t work. The focus shifted, and it derailed after that.

But Jesus God in heaven, those sorority houses in Tuscaloosa! The fraternity houses! They’re enormous. I had kind of figured Greek life at universities would be declining, given how old-fashioned and restrictive they can be, especially sororities–and this newer younger generation doesn’t seem as interested as preserving traditions and institutions as previous ones were, but Bama Rush showed me things I didn’t know…that “Rush Consultant” is actually a career, for one thing…and the documentary only briefly touched on the Machine, a supposedly secret society made up of representatives from every fraternity and sorority that controls everything at the University. (I kind of love that shit; I’ve long been an admirer of Pat Conroy’s The Lords of Discipline, which kind of touched on that kind of thing.)

Today I am going to get shit done. Later this morning I am going to make a very brief and short grocery run to the Rouse’s in the CBD, and then I am coming home to spend the rest of the day writing and reading. I didn’t read yesterday, which was a bit disappointing; I’d hoped to finish reading my current book this weekend so I could move along to Megan Abbott’s new one; but anticipation is always lovely, and perhaps I can get along to that next week. One can always hope, can’t one?

But I feel rested and awake this morning. My back and legs are a bit tight and sore, so I think I’m to use that massage roller thing for my back and maybe do some stretching (which I should do every day) to see how it feels. I am planning on getting a chapter finished, maybe doing some reading, and then making my grocery run so I can come back and do more writing. I need to write most of the day, to make up for the last couple of days of irritation and aggravation that kept me out of the proper mindset.

My mind has been all over the place this week, which is weird, but also kind of normal for me. Whenever I am in the weeds with a book my mind goes off in all kinds of directions and produces all manner of thoughts and ideas. I started writing several other entries yesterday, specifically for Pride Month and specifically about being gay–sometimes about being a gay author and what that’s like; I always forget that people never really quite grasp or understand what it’s like to be a queer writer in an intolerant country, of what it feels like to be othered by every community in which you try to find a place where you belong. I’ve never wanted to be THAT gay; the one constantly having to remind people of what is and isn’t homophobia, and is always having to point it out and teach straight people about what it’s like. It’s exhausting, frankly, and sometimes the well-meaning ignorance is highly offensive, but you know they don’t mean it that way so you push down the offense and ignore it while calmly trying to explain to the person why they can’t say or do that…while also not trying to hurt their feelings (although had they put even the tiniest bit of thought into it, would have never said anything offensive in the first place). It’s exhausting having to see trash equate your sexuality with pedophilia and grooming on a daily basis. It’s exhausting having to constantly have to defend your right to exist, having to constantly prove you’re a human being worthy of being treated the same as everyone else…

The mental health of queer people is always under constant assault.

And on that note, I am going to get some more coffee and start working. Either on the book, or on one of these Pride entries. I can’t decide which. We’ll see. Anyway, enjoy your Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow.

I Will Survive

First I was afraid, I was petrified…

Every gay man of a certain age knows all the lyrics to that song–and can (and will) belt it out while on the dance floor. The minute that piano intro begins coming through the speakers is one of those moments when everyone in the bar pauses and makes the “wooooo” sound as the dance floor fills. One year during Southern Decadence we stopped into the Louisiana Pizza Kitchen for lunch. Every table had a rainbow flag on it, which was cool. One of my friends picked up the flag and started raising it while singing “I Will Survive” because it was, in his words, “the gay national anthem.” I laughed really hard–we all did–but it also stuck in my head. That was in 1995, and almost thirty years later I always hear the opening piano riff and think ah, the gay national anthem! All rise!

I also always smile when I remember it.

Being queer in America means surviving, adapting a protective coloring, as it were, so that you could pass without question during your work life (or people might question it, but not to your face). The one nice thing about being a gay man is the fact that, in theory, we can navigate through the world and “pass”; there are very few of us that someone can look at and think, definitively and definitely, without question oh he’s a homo. I have never thought i presented as particularly masculine; certainly when I was a child other kids sniffed it out about me. I don’t know if that means they had some sort of “bullying gaydar” operating at a high level, or if I was so obviously gay that it was noticeable. (I’ve always wondered.) The way we think other people see us is so vastly different from how they actually do see us; none of my friends were either surprised or shocked when I came out to them at long last. I think that’s part of the reason “I Will Survive” is a gay anthem; for one thing it’s extremely adaptable, for another it’s defiant–oh no, bitch, YOU’RE not bringing me and my life down–(has anyone ever done a study about why gay men are drawn to Black women singers with powerful voices?) and that’s a message all gay men can easily identify with: survival. Back in the day we used to have to develop powerful camouflage (no, I never did) and keep the gay personal life and the non-gay professional life divided by a clear line of demarcation.

That’s why going to gay bars was so important for so many of us; the ability to have a place where you could unabashedly be yourself amongst other people like you was so freeing, so life affirming. After I left the travel industry, I was tired of working for straight businesses and having to play down who I was. I was tired of two separate lives, so after I made the decision to leave that job, start working as a personal trainer and focus my energies on writing, I also made the conscious choice to not ever work in a straight office environment ever again. The gyms I worked at were different, despite being owned and operated by straight people, because I never spent a lot of time there. I came in, trained my clients or did my own workout, and then bailed to come home to write. I have not really had a job in the straight world ever since, managing to work in queer spaces most of my life since.

With the community so hatefully under attack again, it takes me back to those olden days before Lawrence v. Texas was decided; when our sex lives made us criminals. I cannot emphasize this enough–before Lawrence, any time any member of my community indulged in sexual relations, they were breaking the law. Our very existence was outlawed. Legally, it was okay to be gay so long as you never acted on it. Which was very similar to the “don’t ask don’t tell” thing, or the strictures passed along by religious hierarchies to their memberships about being queer–it’s okay, as long as you never act on it. Hate the sin, love the sinner–that whole nonsensical thing that automatically relegates all queer people to a lower level existence in society.

Last night we watched the Amazon Prime documentary series on the Duggar family and their entire religious cult (not based in anything scriptural or Christian, really), Shiny Happy People, and it’s actually very chilling. I never watched their show, but it was during the time that TLC went from The Learning Channel to Touching Little Children; the Duggars anchored the channel’s reality program about abusive religious cults that demeaned women and celebrated over-fertility; it was around this same time TLC began promoting and broadcasting shows about beauty pageants for little girls–essentially, the sexualization of little girls for trophies and checks and tiaras. So, on the one hand they had shows with the Duggars and other families like them–abusive cults where children are often molested and it’s covered up–while also promoting and publicizing the sexualization of little girls in shows like Toddlers and Tiaras. Add in the fact that Josh Duggar–the predator groomed by his parents to be a predator–was going to work for the religious zealots known as the American Family Association (long known for it’s homophobia and misogyny) and pursuing a career in politics as a right-wing zealot and homophobe with direct ties to the Huckabee family, including Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. (An unholy alliance forged in hell that no one talks about at all anymore. I’d ask that bitch at every press conference if she and her father condoned the Duggars covering up their son’s molestation of children, including his sisters, and why they never spoke out against the Duggars, and just how close were the two families?)

The sheer misogyny of their beliefs and values–women have no value outside of the home and bearing children; if a male molests girls he is to be protected and the girls sacrificed–and women must obey their husband who is also their Lord and Master.

And they call queers perverts?

Take the sty from thy own eye, evangelicals. Seriously. But thank you, Amazon Prime, for releasing this documentary during Pride Month; let’s remind everyone of how foul homophobes are on every level.

The Internet saga continues. It was out when I got home from the office yesterday, and so Cox is coming out again this morning. If this continues to be an issue, we are definitely going to switch providers. There’s a local company our landlady uses that works well, and of course, since they’re local they are a lot easier to deal with–no text or on-line conversations with “support staff” needed. It eventually came back on after a couple of hours, but I am really getting terribly sick of this shit, you know? I have things to do today and messing with Cox isn’t helpful. Ah, well, there are worse things. I want to work on the book today, I need to run some errands, and I want to get some reading done–I want to finish the book I am reading and enjoying so I can move on to the new Megan Abbott, which I cannot wait to read.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday and I’ll check back in with you later.

Heaven or Las Vegas

Thursday and my last day in the office for the week. Huzzah? Huzzah. I do have to go into the office ungodly early for a department meeting, but that’s okay. I may just have to swing by Five Guys on my way home as a weekend treat. WHY NOT? Why not indeed.

Yesterday was similar to the day before; I didn’t feel tired but I also didn’t feel rested. We were busy at work all day, too, which was cool; the day always passes faster if we’re busy. I was very tired when I got home, worked on the book and knocked off another chapter, then we settled in to watch the finale of Ted Lasso, which was simply marvelous; I am going to watch it again (I cried a lot of the way through it, not ashamed to admit it) and was enormously satisfied with the ending. There will be another, more in depth conversation about the show to come at some point, when I’ve had more of a chance to digest it. I see that there are some people who aren’t happy with it–but it hit every note for me perfectly. Did I get everything I wanted in the end? Of course not, but that was never going to happen, and I am very grateful I found the show (thanks again to Alafair Burke, who told me I’d love it in the first place and she was right). I’ll miss AFC Richmond, but…am grateful that I got to know them all. It was simply magic.

We also watched a George Michael documentary–not the one Paul wanted to watch, alas; we’ll watch that one tonight–and then I had to catch up on the Vanderpump Rules reunion, which was hilarious and fun and reality gold. I also loved that almost every commercial break featured a commercial with Ariana Madix, who is having probably the best revenge tour in the history of reality television.

I slept well last night, and this morning I feel rested and awake and ready to go; first time this week, alas, but what can you do? The book is progressing nicely; I may even have time to revise it one more time before it’s due to be turned in. I have a big weekend coming; a weekend of writing and reading (I want to finish Chris Clarkson’s marvelous That Summer Night on Frenchmen Street so I can move on to the new Megan Abbott) and cleaning. I want to get the car washed this weekend and vacuumed out, I need to get moving on the scanning project, and I should get another box down from the attic to go through. I need to drop books off at the library sale on Saturday, too. Sounds like I am going to need a to-do list specific for the weekend, doesn’t it? I’m also going to have some things delivered, I think, on Saturday.

I feel good this morning, about everything, which is lovely. It’s amazing what a difference it makes when I sleep well, isn’t it? And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday Eve, everyone!