Category: equality

I See The Want To In Your Eyes

Ah, Thursday and my last day at the office for this week. Huzzah?

Yesterday was a good day at work. I managed to get caught up on all my paperwork and admin stuff (just in time to get trained for some more new duties, woo-hoo!) before getting the mail on my way home. I also managed to finish Chapter Six (it’s terrible, but that’s what future drafts are for) before repairing to my easy chair for Sparky cuddle time. He was especially sweet last night; he even went and cuddled up to Paul on the couch on his own, which was delightful for Paul. Our cats have always been more Paul’s pet than mine (not that I didn’t love them), so having me be Sparky’s primary parent has been a bit weird for us. But when I woke up in the middle of the night, he was curled up at the foot of the bed between my feet and Paul’s–so he’s starting to sleep in the bed, too. Progress! The problem, of course, is that we got Sparky right before my surgery, so I was stuck in my easy chair for several weeks while Paul was gone all the time because of work…so Sparky got used to me. It’s also kind of hard to believe that the one-year anniversary of the surgery is coming up. Last fall was rough for me, wasn’t it? LOL. I went to Bouchercon for Labor Day, came home to oral surgery, and once that was all taken care of I had my other surgery.

2023 was quite a year.

Helene is battering Florida today, should make landfall this evening, so stay safe, my Florida peeps. This storm is large enough to effect everyone in the state–Miami is getting strong winds already, and they aren’t even in the cone–and it looks like it’s going to be even rougher the further inland and north it goes. Looking at the map, even Kentucky is going to get slammed with about 2-4 inches of rain, which I know is a lot for a place that doesn’t really get flooding rains regularly. Everyone in the path, please be careful and I hope you’re prepared for it.

We watched this week’s episodes of Bad Monkey, English Teacher, and Agatha All Along, all of which we are thoroughly enjoying, and I think we’re going to start Grotesquerie and American Sports Story tonight. I don’t have to go into the office tomorrow, which is a lovely thought, and then it’s the weekend. Woo-hoo! I want to get to work on Chapter Seven, and I also want to finish a couple of essays. I still want to rewatch the first episode of Monsters before I write about the show (it truly deserves its own entry), and I also would like to get some of my other essays completed this weekend. I think I’ll try to make a to-do list at work between clients this morning.

I was realizing last night that my life seems so weird to me now because I was on a serious treadmill for well over a decade and now I am no longer on a treadmill with an inbox full of emails every morning needing to be answered and books and stories to write and volunteering on top of my day job and that I was also editing anywhere from fourteen to thirty novels a year. Editing was the first thing I cut loose to try to get myself more rest and free time, but the last almost but not quite two years has been very rough for and on me, and also made me realize that giving up on the volunteer work was the smartest thing I could have ever done for myself; there is no way I could have handled everything since January 2023 on while still trying to get the volunteer work done, too–so that was the right decision. Right now, I am using the free time to acclimate and write and clean and organize and read and to relax, which is very lovely and nice.

It’s also super lovely to not worry about making sure I answer all my emails within 24 hours of receiving them, either.

Oh! And in another great and delightful development this week, I solved the primary problem with another thing I am working on and am delighted and excited to get back to it. Yay! I also got some thrilling (for me) news from Paul last night re: the Festivals, which is going to be awesome.

Louisiana politicians continue to prove they are raw sewage, and will always try to one-up each other: “Oh, Senator Kennedy went all Klan Master on someone at a Senate hearing? HOLD MY MOONSHINE!” Clay Higgins continues to embarrass the state and his constituents, and it’s really amazing how the quality of national politicians from the state of Louisiana has declined since the rise of the Tea Party and the horror of the country electing a biracial president two elections in a row. Louisiana used to have people like Hale Boggs, Russell Long, and Mary Landrieu on the national stage–now we have garbage like Kennedy and Cassidy and Higgins;1 who is probably more racist than David Duke. We also can lay claim to disgusting piece of shit Steve Scalise, a power-hungry hateful bigot whose only god is power and money. I’m not sure what happened to the Democratic Party in Louisiana, but it’s been pretty ineffectual for quite some time. Louisiana has always been a banana republic under one-party rule, but there are still Democrats in Louisiana and the Project 2025 takeover of the state has been unopposed for the most part. Part of is the national party’s total disinterest in red states to the point they’ve written them off completely. We do get some decent candidates in races, but without money or active boots-on-the-ground work, we will continue our slide into a third-world country (we’ve always joked about the state being just that, but now it’s not a joke anymore). Alas, I don’t have the energy or time to do much about any of this, and so that’s why I don’t complain about the situation more. But on the other hand, if I can bring attention to what’s going on in Louisiana to my small audience, that is something, isn’t it? Utilize my own gifts and focus on writing about situations that concern me? Well, I can try but I make no promises. (For the record, I love when I post something on social media about something going on here that’s horrible and then people come shrieking in to scream about how horrible it is here…um, thanks I HADN’T NOTICED)

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and please stay safe all those in the path of Helene.

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  1. And Moses himself, the false prophet Mike Johnson, who is no Christian. ↩︎

Hang on Sloopy

Work at home Friday! I have a meeting at ten and then I get to do work-at-home duties for a few hours before I can end my work day and dive back into working on the book. I am having to be a bit more careful this time, as my memory isn’t as good as it used to be and I have been making this up as I go so far, so there are no notes for me to look at and think ah yes, the nurse’s name was this or Aunt Del’s second husband’s last name was NOT Alencon, so last night I reread the first four chapters of this masterpiece in progress and wasn’t disgusted, appalled and/or embarrassed at the terrible writing. (It is excruciatingly awful.) But I was writing down the names of the characters and who they are so I can start constructing back stories as well as who they are, and that will lead to more story and more characters. I also have to synopsize and outline those chapters as well…which also made me realize I have to look up the names of Scotty’s parents and grandparents, which means going through the books, which means…I should just start rereading them and pulling together the Scotty Bible at long last. That is my plan for this weekend; to work on pulling together information that is necessary out of the previous volumes and revising the current chapters. I am also really proud of myself for recognizing this work is necessary to make writing the rest easier and fix the mistakes in these early chapters.

I am also up way earlier than I need to be, but I woke up at six. Sparky actually was sleeping with me this morning when I woke up, which is progress on the cuddling front. I woke up at six, and was awake so figured might as well stay up if I am already, you know? My coffee is good and I am a little groggy, but taking a shower once I finish writing this will help with that, and I can get started on my work-at-home duties and be free earlier, which is really nice,..and I can use this afternoon to catch up on chores and get started on the Scotty Bible, which is cool and exciting. Should I be this excited to be writing another Scotty? I don’t know if it’s the writing Scotty that has me so high or if it’s just writing in general? I also don’t have a contract yet, so they may not even want it. But that’s not anything to worry about right now, either. I am just going to stay laser-focused on writing. The apartment isn’t that bad this morning, really. Tomorrow I have an eye appointment to get a new prescription so I can order new glasses, but other than that and college football, there’s really not much going on for us around here. I do want to watch The Deliverance this weekend. So many possibilities!

Our wretched governor this week asked LSU to start bringing Mike the Tiger back into the stadium for football games this season. I do love that tiger (I even made him the focal point of one of my Scotty books), he is stunningly beautiful, and I remember the year they decided to stop bringing Mike into the stadium. (This was the previous Mike.) The rule always was they wouldn’t sedate him and if he refused to get in the trailer, they wouldn’t try to make him. Previous Mike that entire year refused, and so…no Mike. It was disappointing to me the few games I went to that year–Mike’s entrance into the stadium was always one of my favorite parts of the game. The next year, they decided not to try, and I also think the veterinary school also realized that bringing him into the stadium is probably not the best thing for a tiger. There’s a lot of people, a lot of noise, and if he gets upset or irritated or anxious during a game, there’s no getting him out of the stadium again until half-time or the game ends–and what if the fans rush the field? He’s secure in his trailer, of course, but why upset a big animal who was rescued from a bad situation who’s finally getting used to being taken care of and spoiled? I myself began to realize, the longer more time passed and there was no tiger in the stadium, I rethought the whole thing. Whether there should be a wild animal habitat on campus or not is an entirely different argument, and one I am undecided about the right answer, and know that my reluctance to say its not good has a lot to do with my affection for that tiger.

I’ve also begun to really understand two things about college football (and life for that matter) is that when someone talks about tradition, they’re just saying “we’ve always done it this way” and change is scary; and a lot of the time tradition is what keeps problems festering for decades.

I also think the Governor making demands of our flagship university is not good for the school or the state. If you want to interfere with LSU, Governor Landry, why don’t you pump some more money into the school? Cut tuition? Repair or replace some of the crumbling buildings on campus? No, his only interest in LSU is the athletic teams and showing how powerful he is. He clearly doesn’t give a shit about education in Louisiana, especially if he actually believes having the Ten Commandments displayed in every classroom in the state will improve somehow our educational system…when what it actually is another form of the right’s “thoughts and prayers” bullshit they trot out whenever they try to force us to believe their corrupted faith and think that holy bandage they stick on the problem will make things better somehow.

Leaving things to God’s will is an abdication of morality and responsibility; the proverbial “Pilate washing his hands”. And is that what we need leading the state?

I am beginning to remember that the reason I try not to follow state politics more closely than I do is because it leads to fucking despair.

Right-wing media (which is apparently bought and paid for by the Kremlin) have been trying to hide their overt racism lately by using code, what is more commonly known as “dog whistles.” The latest is this “the Vice-President is a phony because she talks differently to different people”, which basically means “straight white people don’t do this so there must be some nefariously horrible reason for this.” No, douchebags, it’s more of a protective coloring, like chameleons, that marginalized people all develop because straight white people can be so fucking awful. One example of this is my parents had very pronounced rural Alabama accents, which began to fade over the years after they left, but it’s still there. Paul used to always love when I talked to my parents on the phone because my own accent comes out, and it would usually take about an hour or so for me to get back to the way I normally talk. I learned how to speak with an accent, which I also quickly learned to disguise in elementary school because it was very clear to me that the way I spoke made people assume I was stupid. It’s not just my family, either, that triggers my accent; whenever I speak to anyone who has one mine comes back out–my brain is coded that other people with Southern accents are safe. Likewise, hard as it is to believe but I also tone myself down when I’m around a majority of straight people I don’t know. This is why gay bars were so important for so long–after a week of coding myself as either “less gay” or “blend in don’t bring attention to yourself”, going to a gay bar where I could completely be myself without worry of losing either my job or being attacked was an enormous release, and I know I’m not the only gay man who saw the bars as a conduit to community and safety. That’s why it kind of bothers me that straight people come to gay bars and hang out because the vibe is so different than straight bars; their presence makes the safe space not as safe, and sometimes it makes them uncomfortable to be a minority and they act out. I suppose it’s kinder to say “straight people need to be more respectful of queer safe spaces.” That’s always been a problem, and really–bachelorette bridal parties need to stay out of gay bars because drunk straight white girls can be the absolute fucking worst.

And don’t come to our bars for entertainment if you don’t support our equality.

Yes, ladies, you’re super-cool for making asses out of yourself in queer bars, and oh so tolerant for gifting us and our spaces with your presence. I know that things have changed since I was younger, and the younger queer generations aren’t so rigid about separating their lives because they don’t have to, and I am all for that. Straight kids and queer kids absolutely should be friends, should hang out, and the sexuality thing shouldn’t make a difference, which is what we’ve always said. Younger generations don’t need that safe space as much, at least in the cities, the way we used to need it. I haven’t set foot in a gay bar in years, so maybe the entire culture has changed, and again, this is how things used to be is not a compelling argument against change. Maybe I’m just that old man who’s out of step with the young ones these days, and I do catch myself all the time questioning things I’ve always thought and believed and are reflexive; I’ve spent a lot of time the last few years sorting things out in my head, and seeing things with the clarity distance provides.

I was wrong about so many things. I blame public education, for teaching me American Mythology instead of US History.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be back later. Thanks for checking in!

Cast Your Fate To The Wind

Ah, and here we are, three day weekend in the rearview mirror as we coast headfirst into a Tuesday that is destined to feel like a Monday all day. I set the alarm and got up at seven-ish; an hour later than a work day and really, something completely sensible to do on days off. An extra hour still feels like a treat, and then I have the entire morning to get things done. I washed dishes, made breakfast, wrote two posts, and then dug into the book and cranked out over two thousand words before noon–with the entire day still ahead of me. I wish I could tell you that I worked on some other writing, but I didn’t. I was reading newsletters and magazines that have stacked up (another thing that is stupid–I let magazines pile up, collect dust, and just be clutter rather than simply reading them at first opportunity and then tossing them in the trash–or tearing out an article that may be of interest to me at a later date (can’t imagine how all that paper piled up on me over the years). I am pleased to say I have only three back issues of Texas Monthly (their true crime reporting is stellar) and the latest 64 Parishes to read now. I also watched some news clips on Youtube, fell into a wormhole about the history of the Cathars in southern France and the Albigensian Crusade that killed them all, and finally started reading about the Baptist War in Jamaica–there’ll be more on that at another time, trust me on that– before doing some filing and touching up around here. All in all, it was a lovely weekend, and I am so delighted to be back into the book again (I was worried about picking it back up again after the last few days not working on it), and knowing that my editorial and creative eye is coming back together, too. I still have to get used to my life as it is now, and I know there are going to be bad days that I just need to accept and roll with, and not beat myself up over those sorts of things. Being too tired to write or create is a valid reason for not doing so. It just is painful and the writing isn’t any good, anyway–and it’s not like I need to prove to myself that I can write a goddamn crime novel, do I?

I feel pretty rested and good this morning. We shall see how that develops for the rest of the day. I think we’re pretty busy today; or maybe not; maybe it was next week? We always get busy at the STI clinic after Southern Decadence…which kind of makes me a little proud, because we’ve trained our clients so well that they know about the window periods for the bacterial infections so they wait. (The schedule isn’t that busy; I just checked it–laptop came home with me on Thursday–so yes, it’s next week that is super-busy.) I have to make groceries on the way home from the office tonight; I may be too tired to work on the book tonight but…that’s okay.

Yesterday afternoon I was kind of at loose ends and dangerously close to being bored, when I remembered a conversation at work recently, in which one of my co-workers told me he loves to watch bad movies with a friend to laugh at them, so I asked, as is my wont, if they’d seen Voyage of the Rock Aliens–I have yet to find anyone else who has seen it (I saw it twice in the theater) and so that was in my mind. Right now I can’t remember the brain trail that led me to think of it yesterday, but I did, and the whole movie is up on Youtube…so yes, I rewatched it, and…it really can’t be watched alone to be laughed at properly. Anyway, it was the great Ruth Gordon’s final movie (what an epitaph!), starred Pia Zadora and an incredibly beautiful young Craig Sheffer. It’s a weird mash-up of the bad scifi and beach movies of the 50s and 60s, a lot of the humor is of the time (I’m sure kids today, or even viewers of any age for that matter, would get the Lake Eerie jokes, because the lake was cleaned up), and it’s even more godawful to rewatch after forty years or so. It may even be worth it’s own entry…

We also started watching Kaos, which is demented in a very fun way; a modern twist on Greek mythology. A reboot kind of, if you will. Jeff Goldblum is perfect as Zeus, as is Janet McTeer as Hera. Of course, since it involves Orpheus and Eurydice, it put me in mind of Hadestown, which I saw on Broadway in New York thanks to Mike Ford. I’m looking forward to watching more tonight, if I’m not too tired and Paul isn’t working on a grant the way he has been for the last week or so. Of course, I could unwind with my Alison Gaylin ARC, which I am doling out to myself as a reward for getting things done.

I am very glad that my brain has finally unlocked and I am not only writing again, but writing the way I did before the recent times of troubles. I’m enjoying it, and am having fun with it again. I don’t know if I am all the way there again yet, and I’m not all the way back to normal (or whatever passes for normal in my life) quite yet, but I don’t feel like there’s a dark cloud in my brain and just getting through the day is a triumph anymore. Now that it’s unlocked, I can also see that some of the stories I’ve written over the last four years and not been able to place (or finish)? Now that my mind is more clear than it’s been in a while, I can see what the problems are–the voice and tone of the story. They’re written kind of in a cheery, pleasant tone, and that doesn’t work with what the stories are about. What was I thinking? No, they need to be colder, and more desperate, unsentimental, which isn’t as easy for me as it should be. They need to be harder and colder and crueler, more desperate, in order for the stories to work, which is also pretty cool. I’m so glad I’ve figured this out at long last! I also think part of the reason I made the stories not as dark as they needed to be was because of the shitshow life had become for us all and I didn’t want to write anything dark. My brain was telling me something, wasn’t it?

I also walked to Walgreens to get treats for His Impious Majesty, listening to the My Dad Wrote a Porno podcast and rather enjoying it–it’s really hilarious, you should check it out–when the door opened in my brain and I finally figured out what podcasts actually are: they’re like radio shows of old only with a more modern delivery system. so we’ve kind of circled back around the entertainment my grandparents used to enjoy–radio/podcast, they are basically the same, with the primary difference how you get distributed to listeners, kind of like do-it-yourself radio. Yes, it only took me how many years to figure it out? Heavy sigh. But now that I finally get them, I can start looking for others that could be fun and informational. I just couldn’t wrap my mind around them–sometimes I have to connect newer technology to older so I can understand its purpose. Yes, I am well aware how obtuse I can be, which I think is a part of the wacky brain chemistry that I want to talk to my doctor about. I don’t need medication to control the wandering mind syndrome, as I’ve remembered how to write again, so that’s not an issue. But it would be nice to have a diagnosis rather than simply wondering and self-diagnosing from my reading.

I also started relearning German on Duolingo this weekend, which makes sense. There are crusty memories deep in the recesses of my brain, and doesn’t it make more sense to try triggering my memory rather than starting from scratch with a whole new language. So far, so good. I can order coffee and bread and wine in German now. So, when I am in a German coffee shop I can say, kaffee und brot, bitte.

I didn’t really have much FOMO about Bouchercon over the weekend–obviously, I know I would have had fun had I gone because now I know too many people not to have fun, if that makes any kind of sense to you. I did miss seeing everyone, but my primary regret in not going was not being able to participate in the voting down of removing the DEI (aka inclusion) from the Bouchercon operating by-laws…yes another attempt by a mediocre white man who used to be on the Board and was long associated with it (back in its misogynist, racist, homophobic days where that kind of shit was not only tolerated, but enjoyed) deciding that since he had a problem with inclusion the entire conference should just do away with it. Thanks, Al Abramson, I remember reporting being treated homophobically by programming years ago and you just patted me on the head and basically told me to get over it. Fuck you all the way to hell and back, and don’t think we aren’t fucking organized, you miserable piece of bigoted trash. Can’t imagine why queers felt uncomfortable and unsafe attending your fucking event, and the trash LOC couldn’t even be bothered reassuring us, and in fact, exposed how homophobic the LOC was. But thanks to the alert Board members and some others–CWoC, QCW–rallied the troops, but the Board also refused to consider it and the refusal of this last minute last ditch attempt to make it a Karen-and-Chad conference again. But this is also why we have to be forever vigilant, because there’s always some mediocrity trying to drive out the marginalized.

Must have been a real bitch-slap seeing how diverse the Anthony Awards were.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday that feels like Monday, and may be back later.

Mr. Tambourine Man

I was actually cruised yesterday!

I was more startled than anything else, to be completely honest. I had an appointment at 11:30 at the CVS on the corner of Magazine and Louisiana (where the Blockbuster was when we used to rent movies and TV shows on video or DVD) to get my new COVID booster. I made another stop on the way there, to pick up a prescription, and then headed over to Louisiana Avenue for my shot. I had actually never been inside that particular CVS (the one on Prytania is only a few blocks from the mail service and thus more convenient for me to go to), and it’s actually a nice place. So, I checked in for my appointment, and when I was directed to the privacy screen for my shot, this incredibly lovely young man in his early twenties got in the Pharmacy line. Our eyes met, and tilted his head to one side as he smiled, and I thought, as I sat down and the pharmacist closed the screen, I thought, was he cruising me? As I sat there, I thought nah, way too young and besides, I look like shit. I got the shot, which I didn’t feel (shoulder was sore later on in the evening, though; still is a bit this morning), and as I rose to go, the guy was still in line and gave me the same look, only along with the eyes up and down first, and he was indeed cruising me. I kind of laughed to myself as I walked out to my car–I would have definitely pursued this when I was younger–and remembered again how oblivious I am to that sort of thing outside of gay bars. I always was. It never occurred to me that people might cruise me in public spaces that weren’t exclusively queer; friends had to tell me all the time, “That guy was cruising you!” It certainly isn’t anything I’ve even thought about for years, so it was definitely a compliment and I couldn’t help but laugh at myself as I shook my head and started the car, “you know, some younger men like older men, dumbass.”

So, if anyone is ageist, it’s me!

Yesterday, outside of the shot and some other errands I ran, was a lazy day for me. I didn’t do a whole lot of anything; I scribbled in my journal some but the book is beginning to take shape, which is lovely. I pretty much spent the entire day cuddling or playing with Sparky while watching college football games. It was delightful seeing Georgia humiliate Clemson and Miami annihilate Florida, and Texas A&M gave Notre Dame a scare last night. Tonight LSU plays USC in Las Vegas (GEAUX TIGERS!) and we’ll get a better sense of how good this year’s edition of the Tigers are. And Tulane won big, too! We haven’t won a season opener since Joe Burrow graduated (2019 season), so hopefully that will change this year. I think I am going to do a lot of nothing today, too–I’m going to clean the house and write for a while since the game isn’t until tonight–which feels good. I slept super late again this morning and have to think my body needed the rest. I feel good this morning, the coffee is hitting and I don’t feel tired or sore physically (other than the aching shoulder from the booster yesterday), and that way if I can get everything cleaned up, organized and filed today gives me tomorrow to run to the grocery store and write.

I did bite the bullet and renewed the digital version of the Times-Picayune, despite the paper’s descent into a MAGA propaganda machine. I need to be able to read the state and local news, and much as I love local independent reporting, they don’t have the capability to cover Louisiana/New Orleans like Louisiana Sedition can. And I am leaning, more and more, into the concept of writing environmental crime stories so outsides can see what is going on here in Project 2025 Land. I am absolutely fascinated now by the Devil’s Swamp Lake superfund site just north of Baton Rouge, and I’m also researching a short story called “The Haunted Bridge”1, which is over Bayou Tortue (sometimes referred to as “Bayou Torture” on some websites I’ve seen; which is also a good title), and has a ghost story about a young woman whose prom date raped and murdered her on the bridge and threw the body into the bayou; that could be fun to write. God, it’s so nice to be excited about writing again and being creatively engaged.

Oh, and congratulations to everyone who won awards for their crime writing this weekend at Bouchercon–Barrys, Anthonys, and Macavitys all! We didn’t win for School of Hard Knox, but the nomination in and of itself was a lovely thing. It was my eighth (!!!!) Anthony nomination, which is pretty amazing, I think. I’m definitely the most nominated queer at the Anthonys! And we did have a queer winner last night; Kristopher Zgorski shared the Best Short Story Anthony with co-writer Dru Ann Love, which is awesome. Yay for Dru and Kris! They do so much for crime writers, and it’s fun to see them getting started as crime writers themselves, and getting recognition of their own.

It does look like it’s going to rain today–we didn’t get hardly any yesterday, or maybe I’m confusing yesterday and Friday; it’s entirely possible. And this kitchen is an absolute disaster area this morning, so I’d best get going on getting things cleaned up around here so I can do some writing. Have a great Sunday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later.

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  1. Yes, that’s a Nancy Drew title, and it fits two stories I want to write about–the one mentioned here and the Murder Bridge outside Emporia, Kansas. ↩︎

The ‘In’ Crowd

The last few days…let’s just start with saying that there is a lot of garbage on social media. The Katrina anniversary is always a bit hard for me, but has gotten easier over the years. I’ve even gotten to the point where I don’t even think about it until the anniversary posts and photos of the disaster start showing up on my social media feeds. I am also writing a book set during hurricane season and opens during a tropical storm/Category 1. So seeing people troll people’s posts about it is, frankly, disgusting. There was one particular bitch from Bryan, Texas, who took it upon herself to reply to everyone’s comments on a particular thread posted by one of our local television stations, memorializing those who died. Almost all the response comments on said post were from people who lived through it, commiserating and remembering their experiences and how terrible it was. This bitch responded to every one mockingly, saying things like if that was the worst thing I went through I’d consider myself lucky or Tell me why you’re not still over this minor interruption and so on. She had MAGA written all over her profile and personal feed, of course, because the cruelty is what they love about their movement.

And of course, another Southern white woman writer (not in the mystery community, but part of Louisiana’s) who has always been lovely to me1 in the past posted one of those “don’t lose friends over two politicians who don’t even know your names!” which always pisses me off, because the only people who ever say that don’t want to be judged for being horrible human beings. That is a red flag for me, always–no one who ever truly cared about anyone other than white people would never tell marginalized people to overlook the fact that people think we are subhuman.2 I basically said something similar on her post, basically “tell me you’re okay with racism and homophobia and misogyny” and unfriended her. Then one of her “friends” responded to me with some seriously despicable homophobia. Horrible stuff, on her wall…and she responded to other people after the homophobe came for me, but didn’t say anything to the homophobe, which…she’s perfectly okay with homophobic attacks and language from people she knows…which makes her human fecal sewage.

It shouldn’t bother me at sixty-three, but I don’t need to know anyone who is okay with homophobia. So, local Louisiana author, let me say this to you: you’re a disgusting piece of shit, a Klanwife who is perfectly okay with bigotry and hatred while pretending to not be one of those people, and I should have known you were a homophobe because of the hideously ugly wigs, the trailer trash eyebrows, and the Ross Dress for Less fashions you buy in sizes too small. And I’ve noticed you always slightly smell of urine.

I did post something on Facebook–not that I was angry about it, but I was more disappointed than anything else, not only in her but in myself, and of course I got a lot of sympathy and friends who want to ride at dawn, which is lovely but completely unnecessary because, my friends, most of you have never even heard of this woman. In fact, I met her through people who are my friends, or at least nice to me. I doubt I will ever see her again (see footnote about TWFest), but I will stick to my usual “I don’t even acknowledge trash humans” if we ever are in the same place. And I’m not hurt or upset or anything about it. It’s not the first or last time a Southern white woman I’ve known has turned out to be a Klanwife.3 They’re just better than their men at hiding it in polite company.

It rained all day yesterday and we were in a flood alert, which was lovely. I didn’t leave the house other than taking out the garbage. I spent the day doing my work-at-home duties and some chores. This morning I have an appointment to get my COVID booster and need to pick up a few things here and there around town before coming home for a day of football. Huzzah! I did write some yesterday, but not much, but any progress is progress, and I also started thinking about how to make the book better and more of a challenge to write for me, which is very cool.

And on that note, I am going to get cleaned up to get my day rolling. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and will most likely not be here again today, most likely. You know how much I love college football! GEAUX TIGERS TOMORROW!

  1. Surprisingly enough, I’ve gotten to the point where I forget writers are nice to me because they want to be a part of the TWFest and for no other reason. Guess who will never be on a panel now? ↩︎
  2. And that’s the language I’m using from now on–because that’s the core of white supremacy; everyone who isn’t white or Christian is subhuman. Tell me you’d happily enslave people without saying the words. ↩︎
  3. There’s also this whole thing where people to excuse conservative women for their horrendous beliefs (similar to sympathies for Melania Trump or Usha Vance, but I will tell you this, from years of experience: conservative women are not controlled by their husbands, and are often much worse than their husbands–which was the real lesson to be taken from Gone with the Wind, frankly. Melanie and Mrs. Merriwether and Mrs. Meade and Mrs. Elsing and all those women would be MAGA today. ↩︎

Cara Mia

My apologies in advance, for I am feeling a bit smug this morning.

Suffice it to say, deciding to flex and exercise my writing muscles again with a new Scotty was an incredibly smart decision. I started with a very slow, hesitant 1300 words on Sunday that took about four hours to do…and then when I got home from work last night, blasted out a quick 2000 more (about an hour or so) that not only advanced the story (which I was making up as I went) and now I am starting to get there. I’ve also not created a Scotty completely from scratch in a very long time, starting with nothing more than a situation and a title and making it up as I go along. And you know what?

It fucking felt fantastic. Highly recommended, would definitely do again.

I’m kind of excited about getting home tonight (after making groceries) and writing even more!

I also channeled that momentum into finishing the dishes and cleaning out the sink once I’d printed out the pages from yesterday. All the dishes are clean, and Paul finished the laundry for me while I was at the office, bless his heart. After finishing the chores, we watched a few episodes of Solar Opposites, which is fantastic, and then I caught up on the news and so forth before heading to bed. A rather exciting Gregalicious evening, no? I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to let whatever it is take over and bang out those 2k words last night–and they aren’t bad, either. Huzzah for me! I also ordered pizza for dinner last night, which was also really good and hit the spot. It was quite a lovely Monday from start to finish, frankly, and I never really felt tired all day, either. This morning I am awake, firing on most cylinders and have no desire or need to go back to bed, and that’s terrific, too.

And my, this coffee is tasty this morning.

Not a bad way at all of starting the day, and not at all a bad way to feel on Tuesday morning, either. It’s lovely when you have a couple of really good days when you feel like yourself again. The missing piece in my life has been the writing, honestly, and now that I am starting (no guarantees it will last, after all, or that I’ll feel that way every morning going forward) to get back into the groove of writing again, I remember feeling this good before and I want to keep feeling this good, you know? It’s so easy to have a down day and then turn that into a malaise that lasts far too long for my comfort. I’m still feeling my way through this recovery-from-everything period, and it’s really kind of nice. It really does feel like there was a dark cloud in my brain for years, keeping me from relaxing or even being able to enjoy the thrills and good parts of authoring. I’ve often mused about my not being able to ever be able to actually enjoy the highs of my career and being me because there’s always something clouding my neurons and synapses. It was very cool being nominated for three Anthony Awards last year (and I lost all three), and an Agatha and a Lefty. That’s five award nominations in a year, with no wins, but I don’t really mind not winning, much as I joke about being such a unrelenting awards loser–but a lot of writers are never nominated for even one writing award, and I certainly never saw myself as ever being nominated for any mainstream awards, so each one is truly a wonderful blessing.

And it’s a lot of fun pretending to be bitter about always losing awards.

Everyone is beginning to start their Bouchercon travels, which is popping up all over my social media feeds, and is giving me serious FOMO. But it’s simply not in the cards for me to head up to Bouchercon this year, and I think taking a full year away from conferences and so forth while readjusting and settling into my life again is probably a good idea. It’s also kind of a good thing that I had/have so much free and down time over the last year or so; not only to mentally and physically recover but to reassess and rethink a lot of things. It’s not so much that I have a new attitude (although I do) about my career and life, but I need to take more time to be appreciative of how lucky I’ve been, and how much my hard work has paid off over the years.

It’s very easy to confuse wanting greater success with feeling like a failure because you aren’t there, and that is something I definitely need to remember.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, and I probably won’t be back later; but hey–stranger things have happened.

Silhouettes

Monday morning after a lovely weekend, and we have Labor Day coming up this weekend. Huzzah! I am a little bleary for being up so early this morning, but I don’t feel tired, just not completely awake yet. The good news is I wrote thirteen hundred words of the new Scotty yesterday, and feel very smug and pleased about it. At first I was concerned when the tap was turned off, 1300 words is nothing compared to my old output, but I realized those muscles are tight and haven’t really been used as thoroughly or regularly as I should, so they are going to need to be retrained, just like I need to be retrained with regular going to the gym. I have to slowly build back up so I don’t strain or pull one of those muscles. The weekend was nice–low humidity, and the so the temperatures didn’t feel as brutal, especially since we’ve gotten used to it “feeling like” over 110 for almost two solid months. Yeesh. I think the humidity is coming back today; I know we may have rain this afternoon. But overall, this morning I feel pretty good–at least so far–and am ready to get some stuff done.

It really is lovely to have the weekends free from everything, you know? I didn’t get nearly as much work done on the house as I would have liked, but at the same I worry the lack of pressure or any anxiety driving me is making me a bit more lackadaisical when it comes to things…despite intellectually knowing that my brain has been rewired so I have to rewire everything else to get things done. It’s a learning process, and I had thought I had my routines and so forth down to a science. And hopefully, this time around I will not teach myself the bad habits I allowed to develop over the years. We shall see, won’t we? I did also rethink some of this stuff over the weekend, too. I’ve been so rigid in my writing and how I construct a novel and rarely, if ever, varied that pattern. It was what worked for me then, and I never really had the free time to sit down and figure all of this stuff out. I’m kind of doing that now, and I also think writing two books at the same time (when I was still writing books and hadn’t yet encountered the nightmare that was 2023 kind of broke my writer brain a little bit. It happens, you know? But the rigid way I always used to write my books wasn’t working for Never Kiss a Stranger, and because it’s not my usual kind of crime novel, the unstructured writing of it made it much harder to write. If I am going to finish that book–and I intend to at some point–it needs a plot summary and an outline. Maybe that’s something I can work on while I work on this new Scotty? Stranger things have happened, after all.

Maybe, just maybe, I should do the same with Scotty, rather than making it up as I go? Again, I did that with the first and second, didn’t I? Something indeed to ponder as the three day weekend draws nearer and nearer by the day. I am excited to be writing another Scotty book, because it’s in my comfort zone, and isn’t that where I need to be to get into the swing of persevering with the daily writing, in my comfort zone? I think it’s probably smarter to write another Scotty, and then step out of my comfort zone and go back to Never Kiss a Stranger...although I did remember yesterday why I focused on finishing it in the first place. It developed from me going from finishing the novellas into a collection, realizing this one could be a really good novel, and then moving on to writing it…when what I should have been doing, if I wasn’t doing another Scotty, was finishing either Muscles or Chlorine, and I am going to write one of those next, PERIOD.

But it’s also nice to be putting thought into these things.

On the way home, I am going to stop and make groceries. Once I am there I am going to finish the dishes and laundry, possibly make dinner (or possibly not), and get the rugs back in place in the kitchen. Paul will be home, so I should make something for dinner but I’m not really sure what…and I definitely don’t like deciding while at the store itself what to make for dinner. Pizza would probably be the easiest thing, really; just got one of those premade crusts and slather pizza sauce and cheese over it. I do need to work on my cabinets, but that might be a project for the three-day weekend. I also need to revise and update the to-do list. I feel pretty good this morning, and the nice thing is that my “bad” days now are just more low-energy than depressions as deep as the Grand Canyon, like it was before. I also need to start listening to my body again. I need to stretch regularly, and I need to get back to rehabbing my arm/shoulder at the gym or I will never get back to (as close to) normal (as I can get after the injury and surgery) again. But I’m starting to fall into a routine, I’m not sleepy and groggy until well after ten every morning anymore, and getting up is more about leaving the warmth and comfort of the bed more than anything else.

I hate when I’m comfortable and have to stop.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader. I might be back later–I’m trying to write an essay about toxic masculinity for the Substack, and trying to stick to the “one essay per week” thing there. Or…I may come back over here and try to talk about something, you never know.

Screenshot

I Got You Babe

Well, I survived returning back to work yesterday. I really thought I’d have trouble getting up yesterday morning, but I was awake when the alarm went off the first time–and yes, Sparky was a kitty puddle at the foot of the bed who immediately woke and strolled up along the side of the bed for head butts and purring to get me up. I also made it through the day without ever getting tired, and I was sure I would; I woke up several times during the night, and it seemed to always take a while for me to go back to sleep. I did sleep more deeply last night, and I feel pretty good this morning. Which is weird, of course; I shouldn’t feel more rested and better later in the work week, but when have I ever been normal?

I haven’t wanted to be normal in decades. And this particular oddness is something I’ve noticed before.

But overall, yesterday was a pleasant day. I wasn’t terribly tired when I got off work, which I’d been concerned about, and ran my errand and came home to play with Sparky. Paul worked at home yesterday and went to Hoshun to get us dinner (a treat for my birthday, delayed a day) and we watched the convention again last night. The DNC is simply killing it this year, aren’t they? Whoever planned this convention deserves a huge raise. It’s also lovely getting reminders of how good and deep the bench of next generation party leaders actually is. Who do they have? Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Matt Gaetz? Give me Jasmine Crockett, Wes Moore, Josh Shapiro, Andy Beshear, Pete Buttigieg, and Eric Swalwell any day of the week over those fools. I stayed up to watch Governor Walz–and what a wonderful, amazing, normal family he has, and how much do they all love each other? I know Vance’s biracial children have been completely moved by how their dad has defended their mom–oops, never mind.

And tonight the Vice-President will accept the nomination, and I can’t wait to watch.

The humidity has broken here for a few days; we’re having an unusual cold spell which will result in lots of storms all week next week, and then…it’s Labor Day weekend and college football starts. LSU plays USC in Las Vegas that weekend on Sunday night, and I don’t know if I’m ready for another college football season this soon. I don’t think we’ll be going to any games this year, alas, but that’s okay. No one is really sure how good LSU will or won’t be this year, but most seem to be cautiously optimistic. The schedule is rough this year, too. Two of the non-conference games are USC and UCLA, and I think they play both Texas and Oklahoma this year in addition to the usual SEC meat grinder–although Auburn and Mississippi State have come off the schedule. (Note to self: print the schedule and put it on the fridge; same with the Saints. Sigh. I can’t believe it’s already football season! But I am ready for fall weather–or what passes for it around here, LOL.)

I managed to book an eye appointment for a Saturday in September, and yes, I booked it during the scheduled game that day, at South Carolina. Which is fine, actually; I don’t mind driving out to Metairie in the morning, and I can always get something to eat out there that I usually don’t have access to–which is even better. I probably should stop and make groceries tonight–we need a few things–and I also need to get gas as well. I keep forgetting I need to get gas every night this week on my way home, and if I’m not careful I’m going to wind up stranded on the side of the road somewhere. (Not the end of the world; my insurance has roadside service so I’d just have to wait for someone to bring me some gas so I can get to a station–but this is something I’d have had anxiety about before the new medications, and boy do I not miss the anxiety!) Note to self: get gas on the way home tonight.

I’m working at home tomorrow, so I get to sleep a little later than usual (if His Royal Highness Sparky will allow it–he will most likely not), and of course, I have some chores to get done this weekend. I ordered new kitchen towels for my birthday, which delights me to no end, and I am thinking about upgrading some other things around the house. I also need to clear out some more books and get the boxes down from on top of the cabinets, and maybe even start on the boxes in the attic. Whoa, Nelly, slow down; you’re feeling awfully ambitious this morning (it’s the coffee, no doubt) and by this afternoon you won’t feel like doing anything at all when you get home. There’s a load of dishes in the dishwasher to run, and there’s also some laundry to finish, too. It truly never ends!

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have an awesome Thursday, and I may be back later. I’m tricky that way.

You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling

Bring back that lovin’ feeling now it’s gone, gone, gone….

One of the worst things about being a writer with a very vivid imagination is that I often think I’ve written more of a short story than I have, and inevitably am a little shocked when I open the most recent draft of the story and what I remember writing isn’t there…and then it hits me that I either thought the story through until that point, or I scribbled ideas for it in my journal…so that gradually morphed into oh I never did write that scene/story/ending. I then sigh in disgust at past Greg for not actually writing it into the story itself and then try to remember what I can of it as I try transcribing it. The loss of my short term memory also plays a relatively large role in this madness, too. Can you guess why I am mentioning that this morning? Yep, this was the case when I looked up two short stories to add to my collection; I was trying to decide which stories I have unfinished that just needed a revision and I thought I was there with several more stories than I clearly was when I looked at them last night.

One of the ghastly things for me about being a writer is thinking I’ve written something when I actually haven’t. I was tired yesterday when I got home from work; I hit the wall at some point in the afternoon, so I succumbed to Sparky’s demands and let him cuddle with me in the easy chair when I got home from work. Paul worked at home yesterday, so when he came down we watch John Oliver and then finished Dirty Pop, the Lou Pearlman documentary. It did feel weird not having the Olympics to watch, but this is that fallow two weeks or so between the Olympics and college football getting started. Has the NFL preseason started? I am terrible about that, but since I no longer (refuse to) pay for the Times-Picayune (a ringing endorsement for the red candidate from their editorial board was the final nail in that coffin once and for all) it’s harder to remember about the Saints. I shouldn’t be surprised; the billionaire who bought the paper also is a dyed-in-the-wool Republican who ran for governor back in the day. Maybe I am wrong, but I don’t remember the paper being slanted so heavily to the right back in the day. Anyway, there’s certainly no excuse for me to not get a lot done this weekend other than laziness….and laziness isn’t necessarily a bad thing, either; I think it’s your body telling your mind to rest. I also have a four day weekend this weekend for my birthday, so that should be really nice. I suppose I should make a to-do list of projects to work on for those four day–definitely taking books to the library sale will be number one on the list.

I did sleep really well and got up pretty easily this morning. I’m still in that I could fall asleep again if I went back to bed stage, but the body is starting to awaken and my mind is feeling sharp. I hope I don’t get tired this afternoon the way I did yesterday, but I don’t really have any control over that. It didn’t, in fact, rain yesterday as was promised; it’s possible again today as well and we’re hitting a heat index of 112. Yay. It didn’t seem so bad yesterday as I drove home, picking up the mail on the way. I’m still listening to the podcast My Dad Wrote a Porno, which makes me laugh multiple times in the car; it’s attempt at being sexy and provocative laughably bad, and their reactions to Belinda Blinked are hilarious. There’s many seasons of this, so I should be set for listening in the car for quite some time. I just haven’t been in the mood to listen to music lately while driving, which is unusual. I’m just tired of all my playlists and albums on Spotify, and I’m so disconnected from what is popular music that I have no idea what everyone is listening to these days, and odds are I wouldn’t care for it if I did. (The first time I heard something popular and thought what the fuck is wrong with kids today was when I was in my thirties…so yes, I’ve been a cranky old man shaking his fists at the clouds for thirty years)

One of the things I have been doing in the evenings is paging through a book I read several years ago called Weimar Culture: The Outside as Insider by Peter Gay (I’ve had Weimar Germany on my mind since about 2015 or so) and it got me to start thinking about my work as art, and its place in the overall world of queer art and literature. I don’t think students of queer literature in the future will be reading and/or studying any of my work, by any means; I think the only thing I have going for me is being prolific and producing a lot of work. I think there are many queer crime writers whose work would be seen as more influential and of more literary and artistic value than mine–Michael Nava, J. M. Redmann, Ellen Hart, Kelly J. Ford, Lev Rosen, Christa Faust, Margot Douahy and John Copenhaver, just off the top of my head, are far more likely to make up the reading list for a Queer Crime Lit class. We really do have some amazing queer crime writers out there currently and some pretty amazing ones in the past. I was thinking about writing about queer crime and its giants, but as a queer crime writer myself the possibilities for giving offense are simply too great for me to even attempt such a thing. I also haven’t read every queer or queer-oriented crime novel, either, so it would hardly be definitive, like Michael Bronski’s Pulp Friction. Besides, I’m hardly an academic; that kind of writing isn’t really my style. I admire it, wish it was a voice and style I could slip into comfortably, but it’s really not.

I would, at some point, like to engage in scholarship. Maybe after I retire. Maybe I could take an on-line class on literature and/or one on writing essays. So many potentialities, so many possibilities…kind of nice.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader and one never knows; I may be back later.

Crying in the Chapel

And here we are on a glorious Saturday morning, feeling rested and relaxed and pretty good this morning. My coffee is tasting most excellent, and my kitchen is already clean this morning. I had a good day yesterday. I did my at-home work and then ran some errands before coming home to do some cleaning around here. This morning I am up relatively early and feeling good. I got all the laundry done, and am about to clear out the kitchen sink again before going to work on the floors. I do have to leave the house today later; I have to get charcoal and some other things, and might as well pick up the mail while I am out. Next weekend I am taking Monday and Tuesday off for my birthday, which will be very lovely and cool. And now that my deductible is paid off for my insurance, I can get all this other health stuff (dermatologist, arthritis doctor, bone density test) taken care of before the end of the year. I also need to see an eye doctor and get new glasses.

Obviously, I need a to-do list.

And it was super-great to see Algerian boxer Imane Khelif win the gold medal after all the incorrect and disgusting hate directed at her because the Chatelaine of Castle TERF decided that Imane wasn’t woman enough for her to compete in women’s sports, and so the evil Sith Lady decided to humiliate and embarrass an athlete on the world stage just because she could and she felt she wasn’t getting enough attention. How…Trumpian of Joanne/Robert! And refusing to admit she was wrong because of course she can never be. After all, she is a wealthy woman, and as we all know, billionaires are never wrong. It really is amazing how much people think making a lot of money somehow gives you some kind of moral authority to comment on things that do not affect or impact you at all. At least more people around the world can now see just how awful she actually has become–or has hidden her true horrible self successfully for so long and has become so narcissistic that she believes her own beliefs should be adapted without challenge. It’s also Elon Musk-like, as well.

At least the Olympics accomplished two things: they gave me a lot of trash to block on social media, and also got me to finally delete my Twitter account. I do not miss it in the least.

Today is the Red Dress Run, so the city (especially the Quarter) will be filled with people in red dresses, day drinking. I don’t do the Red Dress Run, obviously–it started up after I stopped going out every weekend and stopped drinking fo the most part–because it’s simply too hot and if I was out drinking in the heat in the morning and early afternoon it would take me about a week to recover from it all. Not cute.

It’s really amazing what a good mood I woke up to this morning. It would be awesome to wake up feeling like this every Saturday morning, believe me. I’m definitely going to work on the kitchen this morning, and I am going to spend some time reading this morning as well. I started reading a short story at my doctor’s office last week, and I need to finish reading that as well as get back into the book I’m reading (I’m not mentioning the title because I don’t want it to sound like the book isn’t good; it’s entirely on my malfunctioning brain that I’ve not finished it yet; I need to prime the reading pump a bit today to get it going again). I also no longer have this sense of impending doom that’s been hanging over my head since the rude awakening I got about my country and fellow citizens in 2016; thank you, Harris-Walz presidential ticket! And not having that dark cloud in my brain–the sense of hopelessness and mistrust of the heterosexual majority in this country–has been marvelous. It’s not over, and we’re going to have to work really hard to make sure that darkness doesn’t win here. The UK and France are doing a great job of taking down their fascist movements; may we follow the world trend towards freedom and equality. It’s nice to feel hope again, you know?

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines for a while today. I am hoping that today will continue on this high note, and I hope that it does for you as well, Constant Reader. I may be back later; I am working on several other entries that will go up on Substack and possibly here, too. I guess we’ll just have to see how the day goes, and how much cuddle time Sparky will demand.