Category: errands

Take Me Home, Country Roads

Monday morning and I slept very well last night. This is, of course, a good thing because I have a lot of work to do today (what else is new?). I did manage to get some things mostly taken care of yesterday (I am missing a 1099, which is going to be problematic, taxes wise; I’ve already written to get a copy of it) and of course, this week is when I leave for Albuquerque. Once I am finished writing and posting this I will undoubtedly make a to-do list of things I have to get done today–of course I have work-at-home duties today as well. But I slept great last night–the first time I’ve slept through most of the night in a very long time–and as such I am feeling a bit more invigorated than I usually do in the mornings. This is a lovely thing, I think….feeling rested is always a good thing, methinks.

It really bothers me that I can’t find that 1099, though. But where would it have been had I not put it in the file with the others? I know my organizational skills have slipped in the last few years (thank you, pandemic brain) but this is…well, this is something important, and it’s the first time I’ve misplaced something important I will need in, well, years.

But I got all my expenses for the year figured out, scanned all other tax documents, and I also did some work that needed to be done; that should, in fact, all be wrapped up this week. So yay for that, at any rate. I also spent some time reading Mia P. Manansala’s Arsenic and Adobo, which is quite marvelous, actually. I’ve had an e-galley forever, but as Constant Reader knows, I am not a huge fan of reading on my iPad, so it’s languished there ever since it arrived. When I was in Metairie for appointments a few weeks ago, between appointments I ducked into the Barnes & Noble on Veterans’, and grabbed not only a print copy of it but the second book in the series as well. I doubt I will finish it before I leave Thursday, which will make it my airport/plane book for the trip. (note to self: pick out other books to take with me on the trip) The voice of the main character is terrific, and while I am only a few chapters in, I am enjoying it very much. Mia does a great job of developing character and place, as well as the relationships between the series characters–all of which are so crucial in a mystery series. You literally feel like you’ve been set down in the middle of a world that has always been there, and are there for the next chapter in these peoples’ lives. What more could one ask for?

I have to say, I’ve been reading a lot of excellent work lately. Exciting, but also a little bit on the intimidating side as I am also a writer. But it certainly all adds in to my belief that we are living in a Golden Age of crime fiction, with perhaps the most amazing and diverse community of active writers in the history of the genre. That also gives me hope for the future of the genre, you know?

We finished watching Dark Desire last night, and it took several turns before the finale, which was in and of itself a big surprise. I would imagine if I sat down and tried plotting out the story, with all the subplots, red herrings, and so forth, I would most likely find any number of contradictions and/or holes in the plot and/or subplots that were abandoned along the way, but I try not to watch movies, books and television–when I am doing it for pleasure and relaxation–in a critical way (unless, like with Cruella, it’s so blatant and in-your-face you can’t help but notice). Elite‘s new season drops on Friday (while I will be in Albuquerque) so we’ll probably have to wait to watch that until I get back from the trip. I think the final episodes of Ozark drop at the end of the month when we will be in New York, too.

But I have to say, it’s nice having Paul back to normal and having him around more. I’ve seen him more over this past week than I have in the past few months and I have been greatly enjoying that. I also have some errands to do today around my work-at-home duties–mail and groceries to make (not many, thank you Baby Jesus)–and some organizing to get done as well. Heavy sigh. (Like right now I am eying things where i may have stashed that 1099 in a moment of incredible stupidity.)

But on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader.

I Feel the Earth Move

I indulged myself by staying in bed until almost nine this morning–I know, right? I woke up at three and again at five (like every other night this week; this is a trend in my sleep that I am not liking all that much), but stayed in bed. Now that I am up, it’s gray and wet and gloomy outside; maybe it was rain that kept me in bed. What is it about rain and being safe and dry and warm that feels so comforting? I wish I knew. I am also trying to decide this morning over my coffee whether I want to leave the house today. I should swing by the mail and maybe make some groceries and get gas for the car; I also need to get my taxes together, work on my short story, and some other things. I also want to spend some time with Chris Holm’s Child Zero today (and this weekend). I should also brainstorm some more plot ideas for the two books I’ll be working on this year, and once I get this story in some sort of shape I want to go back to “Never Kiss a Stranger” and “Festival of the Redeemer” and some other stories. I had pretty much decided to use April to do clean-up on some things–finishing stories etc–and now it is April; how delightful is that? I can hear thunder, which makes leaving the house seem even more undesirable; I’ve not checked today’s weather. Paul is seeing his trainer today, and instead of going to the office immediately after he’ll be coming home. I think we might (I might) rent Spiderman No Way Home today; we started watching Death on the Nile last night on Hulu but bailed on it when the first ads popped up in mid-scene; at least on a broadcast network, they plan where the commercials will go so a character won’t get cut off in mid-sentence. I am really starting to dislike Hulu’s services for streaming; I remember trying Youtube TV and hating it because it’s interface was useless and difficult to navigate. I really would prefer not to go back to cable under any circumstance; I despise Cox with every fiber of my being. The great irony was the reason I chose Hulu in the first place for a streaming service was because their interface was intuitive and incredibly easy; so naturally they keep changing it and making it less user friendly. (Although to be honest, I was only interested in watching Death on the Nile in order to see Egypt; there’s no way this newer version can possibly top the original with Angela Lansbury, Bette Davis, and Maggie Smith.) Instead we turned over to Netflix and dove into the second season of Dark Desire, which got us caught up in the story immediately.

We wound up going to Costco last night after Paul got home from work to get it out of the way. I also had to take Scooter to the vet for his biannual senior kitty workup–dropping him off and picking him back up later–and I think the Costco trip wore me out. Why is Costco so tiring for me? I hope someday to have a better understanding of that. And we spent a lot of money but it didn’t seem to me like we got as much stuff as we usually do? I don’t understand–will probably never understand that, but I suppose it’s prices going up everywhere that is to blame.

Ooh, it just got darker, which means storm a coming. Ah, there’s the thunder. And it lasted quite a while, too….I suppose I should check the weather.

Ah, rain all morning and then sunny the rest of the day. That I can live with. It also solves the problem of what to do about the errands–run them today or wait? The mail can wait until Monday; there’s no rush to getting it, after all, and I could always just run to the Rouse’s in the CBD to pick up the few things I do actually need. Decisions, decisions.

Ah, there’s the lightning and the rain and even more thunder. I may have to turn on a light, it’s gotten so dark.

I do love New Orleans rain; I’ve never lived any place where it rains the way it does here. I mean, it fucking pours down here, coming down so hard and fast that the drains (and pumps) take a good while to catch up with it. I own about twenty umbrellas as a result of being caught in the rain unexpectedly; it can also go from hot, humid and not a cloud in the sky to a torrential downpour with street flooding in a matter of minutes. Although this doesn’t seem like one of those street-flooding monster storms; this seems more like a oh the greenery needs watering kind of rains. Doesn’t mean it can’t turn even uglier as I sit here typing, but hey. It’s still one of those chill damp mornings where curling up under a blanket with my coffee sounds vastly more appealing than any of the other dreadful things I need to do today–dreadful might be a bit harsh, but unpleasant certainly doesn’t miss the mark nearly as much.

So on that note, I am going to get another cup of coffee and head over to my easy chair to spend an hour with Child Zero–I’ll figure out the rest of the day when that hour is up.

Have a happy Saturday, Constant Reader.

A Reason to Believe

Work at home Friday, and I actually slept in till seven! A whole extra hour! (Don’t think I didn’t wake up right at six in the morning, though…) It looks like a sunny April first out there–cannot believe it’s actually April already. It’s very strange to wake up on Friday morning and look at a normal weekend for the first time in a long time–one where there’s not a looming deadline hanging over my head, the Festivals are done for a year, and I can actually relax and try to get those odds-and-ends that have been hanging around that I never seem to be able to get around to taken care of–if I am lucky. We need to make a Costco run, and Scooter has to go in for bi-annual “senior kitty” check-up. I need to get my story worked on a bit too this weekend, and maybe I can shoehorn in some other writing as well. I also want to spend some time with that Chris Holm novel, knowing I will most likely be sucked into it and won’t get anything else done over the course of the weekend.

It happens.

Yesterday was a pretty good day. I was in a good mood and had energy most of the day–petering out as the day come to a close, as always–and left the office later than I usually do, resulting in the horror and frustration of being caught in rush hour CBD traffic on the way home. My office really is in probably one of the most inconvenient places in the city for me to get to; the old office on Frenchmen Street was only slightly easier to get to–but it still involved driving through both the CBD and the Quarter. Now that we’re further downtown, you’d think it would be easier–I live near an on-ramp to the highway system, and the office is right off the Claiborne exit on I-10 East; it can take me as little as five minutes to get there in the mornings (if I hit the lights properly, which never happens). But I can’t take the highway on the way home–because I have to use the I-10 interchange with Highway 90 to the West Bank (the twin spans) and the traffic is usually backed up almost all the way to the on-ramp at Claiborne Avenue), which is a nightmare all day every day, but is especially horrible in the later afternoon when everyone is getting off work. So I either take Claiborne Avenue all the way uptown to get the mail and make groceries on my way home, or I just take Claiborne to Orleans, head through Treme to the CBD on Loyola, turn onto Howard Avenue and that leads me to Tivoli Circle and St. Charles and BOOM I am home. Unfortunately, yesterday Loyola had a lane blocked by three streetcars that were just parked at the Poydras intersection (the absolute worst place, traffic wise) and as such, it was after five when I got home. I did some laundry, unpacked my backpack, and sank into my easy chair. Scooter climbed into my lap, cuddled and purred and fell asleep, and that was the end of that for all intents and purposes. I watched this week’s Superman and Lois–it really is a good show–and then switched over to Young Justice, which is incredibly well done; with each new episode I not only marvel at the storylines they’ve devised but the strong character building the writers manage, eventually going to bed around ten.

I am also hoping to return to the gym for the first time in a while. Yes, I will be heading out to Albuquerque next week, but I also can make it to the gym a few times before I do. I need to remember that I enjoy working out and that it feels good when I do. Plus, it’s lighter out later now, so I don’t have to walk there and back in the dark anymore. It’s not that I feel unsafe or anything, but walking around back streets in the neighborhood can sometimes be a bit on the creepy side; the problem of having a vivid imagination is that you can never really turn it off. Which is why I have files and files and files of book and novella and short story ideas…and keep having more every damned day. I had another great idea yesterday, in fact–well, I do like to believe all my ideas are brilliant, let’s be completely honest–which I dutifully made note of in my journal at work and expanded on it a bit for a couple of pages, but even as I closed the journal I thought, well, when precisely are you going to write this book, Gregalicious? Heavy heaving sigh. I do want to get a lot of writing done this year….and I need to stop beating myself up because my writing “muscles” are tired and need to rest for a bit.

It happens.

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

Bad Weather

Monday morning and I am awake. Scooter has taken to sleeping with me, as I’ve noted, since Paul moved into the hotel and now I understand why it’s so difficult for him to get up every day when Scooter is cuddling with him. It’s interesting to me how pet-owners are always so reluctant to disturb their pets when they are sleeping–like they won’t go back to sleep or don’t spend most of their time sleeping–and that is exactly what happened to me this morning. I woke up to find him curled up next to my shoulder, his little head resting on my arm, and not only dead asleep but purring. I smiled and went back to sleep. I was finally able to get up when I woke again and he was no longer purring. I shifted a bit, he woke up and moved to the laundry basket, thus freeing me to get up. Insane, isn’t it? All he would have done was get up and go to sleep in the laundry basket, and yet…well, it’s also nice to be cuddled with him, too.

I stayed off social media for the most part yesterday, and I think that my plan from now on is to do precisely that on the weekends. Did I feel a bit remote and isolated and disconnected? Sure, I did–but at the same time, it was also kind of fucking lovely, if I am going to be completely honest. It really was. And not checking in on social media or doing the repeated doom-scroll we all seem to do in order to pass time was actually quite lovely. I didn’t really feel like I was missing anything, and I managed to get a lot accomplished yesterday–a lot more than I usually do on a Sunday, and I feel like that says quite a bit about social media and its toxic influence on our lives. I had already started cutting back on it–only checking in here and there throughout the day, rather than obsessively–and it’s helped me focus a lot more on getting things done that need to get done. I think when historians write about this time in our history–provided the world doesn’t end in the meantime–they are going to be very curious and fascinated by our obsession with social media, as well as the damage it’s done to civility and personal relationships…

I finished editing the manuscript yesterday (huzzah!) so will be sending that off to the author this morning. I also did a lot of cleaning yesterday, and did a lot of brainstorming about the story I am working on and the next Scotty book. I also spend some time with Alex Segura’s Secret Identity, resisting the urge to ignore everything else and tear through it as quickly as possible and instead taking my time with it, so I can savor the reading experience. I am greatly enjoying this visit to the 1970’s comic book world, and seeing a look at New York during that same time period; when the city was grimier and grittier. (I was actually thinking about how differently New York looks in older movies–like Pillow Talk–as opposed to 70’s movies like The French Connection, Taxi Driver, and Midnight Cowboy. Granted, the old movie code inevitably had something to do with that, but the evolution of depictions of New York on film would make for an interesting essay for someone with more knowledge of film to write; I know I would love to read something like that.) But I am, as I said, loving every minute of Secret Identity, and am glad I decided to go slow and enjoy the story and what Alex has done here in the book. Bravo, Alex!

I have some errands to do today, data to enter and work at home duties galore; I also would like to spend some time getting my emails handled and under control–I’ve let them slide during the focus on finishing editing the manuscript–and of course, still some odds and ends of cleaning to get done here in the Lost Apartment as always. (I do feel better about some of the progress made this weekend, however; I’m starting to feel like the apartment is finally getting under some kind of control. Not that there still isn’t a lot to do, but headway has been made at last.)

Pretty cool, actually.

And on that note, I am going to dive into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.

The Wisdom of Time

Hello, Monday morning, how are you?

It was cold when I woke up this morning–but its warming up; definitely springtime in New Orleans where the differential between night and day can range from about ten degrees to as much as thirty. Yay?

Well, that there was an interruption, wasn’ it?

I took today off because I had appointments this morning–hello, Metairie!–and thus wasn’t able to get this finished before leaving the house. Sorry about that, y’all; I know how important it is to you all to get your started with Gregalicious and coffee, and I have failed you miserably, and on a Monday, too. There’s simply no excuse for this, is there? I am hanging my head in shame as I type.

But yesterday was a good one. I started reading Alex Segura’s marvelous Secret Identity, read some issues of the Nightwing Rebirth run, finished editing that manuscript I was working on (now I have to get the edits into the electronic version; I work on hard copies because I find electronic edits make it hard for me to see the overall story and its arc–which is one of the reasons I don’t edit much anymore. y old-fashioned methodology for working shouldn’t cost us the rain forest when it’s easier for me to stop doing that kind of work. I then started watching the Young Justice series on HBO MAX–which I really am enjoying as well; looks like Alex has dragged me back into the world of comics and super-heroes again for another round. I also went down some Nightwing Internet wormholes.

I really love Nightwing, if you couldn’t tell.

So today, now that my appointments are over and I am home, I think I’m going to take the rest of the day off. Yes, there’s always work I could be doing–always, but that doesn’t mean I can’t take some time away from the world every now and then. I need to get ready for the workshop I am teaching on Friday–it’s been soooooo long since I’ve taught; I definitely will need to do some rehearsing at home–and I also need to prepare for my panel on Saturday (why I hate moderating; if you’re on the panel you can just show up), but I have so much to do I am not going to get much chance to enjoy either the Tennessee Williams Festival or Saints & Sinners this year. Sunday I probably won’t even head down at all; I’ll need to get over two consecutive days of public speaking for one thing (just thinking about it wears me out) and then I have about two weeks to get ready for the trip to Albuquerque for Left Coast Crime (my first time ever).

I also stopped in the Barnes & Noble on Veterans’ while i was out there, between appointments, and picked up Rob Hart’s The Paradox Hotel and Mia P. Manansala’s two Tita Rosie’s Kitchen mysteries, Arsenic and Adobo and Homicide and Halo-Halo. I also got The New Orleans Voodoo Handbook by Kenaz Filan because, well, why not? I don’t know an awful lot about actual New Orleans Vodoun, and since I’ve been doing all these New Orleans and/or Louisiana deep dives over the last few years, I thought it time to get something to supplement Robert Tallant’s Voodoo in New Orleans, which I don’t think I trust entirely. That pretty much is the case with a lot of the old New Orleans histories–the trinity of Tallant, Lyle Saxon and Harnett T. Kane are suspect, and that’s a generous assessment–but they are interesting to look through and read to get a better grasp of the legends and stories.

And legends and stories can make an excellent starting place for my own fictions.

And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines. Y’all have a good Monday, okay?

Joy to the World

Sunday morning after probably the best sleep I’ve had in quite some time; it felt lovely, and I am still a bit groggy as I sip my first coffee of the morning. Yesterday was a good day–not a great one–and so this morning I am going to work on some things I didn’t get around to yesterday; running errands, even as briefly as I did yesterday, always seems to throw me off my game for the rest of the day. I did get some cleaning done, did get some organizing done, and today I am going to have to finish those edits and maybe do some reading and cleaning and organizing. Tomorrow morning I am going to get up early and take the car in for an oil change–there’s no end to the excitement around here–and it’s also apparently the first day of spring today. Yay!

We finally were able to watch the latest Scream last night, and we really enjoyed it. I thought it was fairly clever–I also wasn’t really sure how they could do another one–but the meta humor was absolutely there (“it’s a requel! Not a reboot but not a sequel! THE RULES ARE DIFFERENT!”) as well as “I’m Sidney fucking Prescott, of course I have a gun.” Scream was the first slasher movie I saw that I really and truly enjoyed; I loved the addition of humor (that danced very close to the edge of camp but never quite crossed over) in addition to the tension and suspense. We also watched the first episode of The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window or whatever the hell the title is. It’s not bad, but it’s not great, either. Kristen Bell is so eminently likable that it’s easy to watch her (although I kept waiting for her to say that’s a secret I’ll never tell, xoxo Gossip Girl), but it seemed a bit slow. I was, however, impressed with the fact that it’s parody being played absolutely seriously; the title alone tells me it’s parody, but if you go in expecting something along the lines of Airplane! or Police Squad–which is what I thought it was–you’re going to be disappointed. I am not sure if we’ll keep watching–I might, Paul is moving into the hotel on Wednesday and I’ll be home alone until Sunday evening–which means lots of boredom and lots of free time to get things done, I suppose.

Heavy heaving sigh.

I did make my to-do list yesterday so I can start working my way through it this morning. Yay! Always a plus. There’s supposed to be bad weather today, but right now the sun is out and it’s definitely New Orleans spring out there somehow, which is lovely and nice. I should start trying to make it back to the gym more regularly now; definitely should head over there today after I get some things done around here before the afternoon–reading and editing, being worn from working out inevitably keeps me from being productive after I get home; although I suppose I could go later in the day. Decisions, decisions. But it will make me feel a lot better–always a plus–and it should also help me sleep better as well. I am not sure what my work-at-home day tomorrow is going to be like; I may end up having to take the day off depending on how the oil change and so forth goes. (Maybe I should wait until next week. I can’t decide. My oil life still has about 20% use before it becomes a problem; I just worry it will become a problem on a day of the week that I have to work and can’t take it in immediately.) Decisions, decisions….

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and enjoy your first day of spring.

It’s So Hard For Me to Say Goodbye

That isn’t really true. At least not completely, at any rate. I have walked away from a lot of people in my life, nearly all of them toxic in one way or another (in some cases, multiple ways). It sometimes takes me much longer to get rid of toxic people than it might–I will inevitably always excuse behavior, because I always think I deserve on some level to be treated like garbage (thanks, homophobic world in which I grew up! Hugs and kisses!) and so I always take the blame whenever there’s an issue.

But I do inevitably wake up, the proverbial scales falling from my eyes, because that toxic behavior will eventually continue until I’ve been pushed too far, and then–you’re dead to me. Literally. I mean, when you’ve pushed me that far there’s really nothing to discuss, and your behavior has to be pretty heinous, repeatedly, for me to walk away. It also means you’ve probably apologized for that behavior several times before–but you don’t change that behavior, and I no longer want to deal with it.

In other words, when the aggravation you provide outweighs whatever pleasure I get from knowing you–and I’ve also reached the point where I no longer care what you think about me, or what you say about me to people we both know, it’s time for you to go. PAST time for you to go.

I slept very well last night, which was marvelous. I stayed in bed an extra hour after waking up this morning, napping on and off until the call of the coffee became simply too strong to ignore anymore. The coffee also really tastes good this morning, which is weird–it’s not like it could be stronger or anything, since I have a Keurig and every cup is theoretically the same, the only difference being the kind of roast or whatever I use–do you call different kinds of coffee flavors, even though they have flavored coffee? I actually like Starbucks brand, to be honest–their French and Italian roasts, Cafe Verona, and Sumatra, as well as Folger’s Black Silk, and some generic store brand darks aren’t bad, either. I usually alternate between them all morning so as to never get burned out on a taste I like. But for some reason–the rest? –the flavors are more noticeable this morning. I knew–or was pretty certain–I was going to sleep well because I got very tired at the office yesterday afternoon. I felt fine all day, but right around three o’clock I hit the wall and was very exhausted. I came straight home from the office, did some chores around the house, and then retired to my easy chair to watch some World War II documentaries on Youtube before switching over to Ukraine war coverage on MSNBC. The eerie similarities between this conflict and the start of World War II are, while not exact, still troubling: Russian takeover of Crimea=Nazi takeover of the Sudetenland (a brazen land grab the rest of Europe allowed to “keep peace”); the invasion of Ukraine=invasion of Poland (but it’s not going as well and as easy for Putin as it did for Hitler, obviously). The US armed and loaned money to the Allies for over two years before being drawn into the conflict; we are currently supplying and loaning money to Ukraine.

And while Putin and his “intelligence” clearly underestimated the resistance and will of the Ukrainian people, they also didn’t count on Volodymyr Zelenskyy becoming, in the face of one of the greatest crises any leader can face, the true heart and soul of his country. Talk about rising to the occasion! We all like to believe we would stand up in the face of such a crisis…but would we?

Today is my work-at-home Friday. There is data to enter, condoms to pack, and chores to be done around the house. I need to finish editing a manuscript, I need to work on a short story and perhaps edit a few more, and of course there are the general weekend errands that need to be run. It’s kind of gray outside today, and the forecast is for really horrible weather later this evening–tornados and high winds and heavy rains–so tonight is going to be the perfect night to curl up with the new Alex Segura novel. I am saving it as a reward for getting everything done this weekend that I need to get done; although I will probably crack it open to get started tonight. Yay!

And on that note, tis time for me to head into the spice mines. Y’all have a great Friday, and I will talk to you again tomorrow.

Without The One You Love

Tuesday morning!

The weather turned surprisingly lovely yesterday–seriously, March madness is how you can describe New Orleans weather in the merry month of March–which made those errands I had to run not seem nearly as irritating or awful or tedious as they usually do. It’s even darker outside this morning than usual–thanks again, Daylight Savings Time; I can’t tell you how much more I appreciate getting up when it’s darker than it has been. Hurray? It rained overnight as well; things are glistening out there in the light from my windows. I thought when I was in bed that I heard rain–not heavy–but wasn’t sure if it was my imagination or not. I woke up around three thirty, and was off and on the rest of the morning until my alarm finally went off. That means I will probably be very tired today, will probably hit a wall around two or three in the afternoon, and better sleep tonight.

God, how I hate Daylight Savings Time. My body had finally reset its clock, only to have DST fuck it all up all over again. Yay.

I finished the final revision of the book last night and sent it to my editor, who hadn’t started yet on the sloppy mess I turned in (thank God). I think there’s still some clean-up and tightening of the story that needs to be done as yet, but I feel better about getting it revised again. I also need to stop worrying about it. I think part of my problem with sleep last night had to do with that stress–ugh, fucking stress–and I really need to focus going forward on making sure that my stress levels not only go down but stay down. I already made some decisions about the future over the weekend about going forward with my life–looking ahead to the years leading up to retirement–and I really do need to make plans. I also have to get my taxes pulled together for my accountant. Heavy heaving sigh.

But I don’t feel sleepy this morning, despite the shitty night’s sleep; but I suspect I will feel very tired later. Yay.

Paul actually got home last night before I went to bed–which hasn’t happened on a weeknight in quite some time–and we watched some more war coverage before we both went to bed. I’ve often wondered what it was like to live in the United States after September 1, 1939; I guess we’re learning. (Ah, thunder just boomed. And there’s the rain. A torrential downpour, yay. That’ll make walking out to the car a lot more fun than usual. Hurray.) I’ll probably swing by and get the mail on the way home tonight. Alex Segura’s Secret Identity should be waiting for me when I get there this afternoon; an ARC of Chris Holm’s Child Zero was there yesterday. (Aside: it is pouring outside. But my morning weather alert was just about thunderstorms and wind; nothing about street flooding, which is a plus because it is really coming down out there. Definitely will need to take an umbrella with me this morning. Hopefully it will slacken before I have to leave….ah, so let it be written, so let it be done. It’s already stopped.)

Shouldn’t have looked at Twitter. Apparently it’s hailing in the Marigny.

Great.

Ah, well, the coffee is kicking in and even though my eyes feel tired (ugh, I hate that tired-eye feeling) I think it’s going to be a good day. One can keep hoping, at any rate, right? And it’s the Ides of March! Fortunately, I don’t think I am going to be stabbed by a mob in the Roman Senate…mainly because I wouldn’t be going to the Roman Senate today. I’ve always thought it was interesting that Julius Caesar was, if you want to look at this in American terms, considered to be a hero in history and is certainly taught that way; the winners write the history, after all, and while Caesar was certainly murdered–his great-nephew/adopted son Octavian eventually became the first Roman Emperor, so of course history would be written sympathetically. But…Caesar was a despot who seized power and undermined the Roman Republic; Octavian took it one step further and turned the Republic into an Empire, with himself as a god-emperor. Since the Roman Republic was really one of the very few in history, naturally Americans, in their hubris, look to Rome to compare and contract our democracy to (I am always amused when clueless Christians insist that the collapse of Rome was due to its godlessness…um, Rome reached its apex of power before the birth of Christ, and one could quite easily make the argument that Christianity undermined the Empire to the point where it finally fell…and of course, Western-centric historians never like to point out that the Roman Empire actually didn’t finally fall until the Ottomans took Constantinople in 1453.); but they rarely draw the proper conclusions. History is always taught with a sympathetic eye to the tyrants who ran Western European countries until the monarchies fell. Current events are rarely, if ever, placed into the proper historical context which makes understanding them easier.

Heavy heaving sigh.

And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day Constant Reader; I certainly intend to.

Automatically Sunshine

Monday, and my body clock–which had finally adjusted to me getting up early for work–is now all messed up again. Thanks, Daylight Savings Time, thanks a lot.

I woke up yesterday determined to get things done but that eventually didn’t happen, sadly. I started off the morning thinking, ah, I’ll read for a little while and then I’ll get going on my day but instead I got sucked into the book I was reading, and by the time I finished The Twelve Jays of Christmas, it was around three in the afternoon and I was… not fatigued or tired, but the malaise kind of set back into my day and it was rather unpleasant. I wound up getting sucked into war coverage, and finally caught up on Superman and Lois before eventually going to bed. I slept deeply and well and woke up this morning reluctant to get out of bed and get my day started. My body’s natural tendency–Greg’s natural tendency–it to default to laziness and doing nothing; a body at rest and all that, and my body and mind definitely wanted to stay at rest this morning. In fact, even as I sit here drinking my coffee and listening to the washing machine run, the bed is calling for me to return and burrow back beneath the covers and close my eyes, even though I am awake. But I have work-at-home duties to do, and later on I have to finish this final edit on my manuscript and start working on editing another one for someone else. I am getting closer to being caught up and getting big projects out of the way, which is lovely on the one hand, but on the other hand it is still incredibly daunting to have so many other things still hanging over my head.

I don’t know what it would feel like to not have something hanging over my head, though, so I am not sure how I would feel were that to ever happen. Knowing me, it would cause me stress and make me worried that no one is interested in any work from me anymore.

The weather has gotten cold here again, which isn’t conducive for me wanting to get out of bed in the mornings, either. It’s not as bad, obviously, as it is other places–we didn’t have a snowpocalypse, at least, for which I will be eternally grateful–but I do love how we always get sucked into thinking winter is over because we have a really warm week of sun and high temperatures, only to get it right between the eyes. March is indeed a cruel month–wasn’t March the month they used to say “in like a lion out like a lamb” about? (I’ve not heard that phrase since I was a child) That reminds me–speaking of odious chores hanging over my head–I need to get my taxes together. Ugh, indeed an odious chore, and once again, like an idiot, rather than keeping track of my deductible expenses all year I need to compile them now. *head desk*

I never learn, do I?

I guess that is the one constant in my life.

So, this morning I need to make this week’s to-do list. I have the weekend’s sitting here in front of me, and I managed to get three of the seven tasks crossed off; I never ran the errands, which is why nothing else got crossed off. I should have done them when I finished reading my book yesterday but I was, as I said earlier, very apathetic once I finished reading the book. Then I need to get my work-at-home duties taken care of, and then I will run those errands to get them out of the way once and for all. I think I am going to read Robert Jones’ The Prophets next; that or Wanda Morris’ All Her Little Secrets. I also have the new Lisa Lutz sitting on my coffee table, which I am sure I will enjoy a lot as well–she’s never disappointed me yet. (I also found out over the weekend that the story I thought was due in early April isn’t actually due until April 30th; a bit of a respite that might help me simply spin the story out rather than try to write the damned thing in a massive rush the week it’s due…at least in theory, right?)

Heavy heaving sigh. And on that note, I am putting my miner’s helmet on and heading down into the spice mines. Have a happy Monday, Constant Reader.

Touch

Ugh, I must confess I am one of those people who despise the time change. I forgot to reset my alarm clock last night when I went to bed, so of course this morning I didn’t remember that I’d forgotten (yes, well aware of what I just wrote)

Sunday and I am debating as to whether or not to run the errands today I’d originally wanted to run yesterday but didn’t because of the St. Patrick’s Day parade. Yes, we pretty much will throw a parade for any reason here in New Orleans, and for those of you who are unfamiliar with the New Orleans St. Patrick’s Day parade, they do indeed throw things from the floats. Just like Carnival, they throw beads and cups and plush toys. They also throw potatoes, cabbages and carrots; the idea being you could catch the ingredients to make dinner at the parade. As for me, I’d rather not stand beside the street while parade riders hurl hard objects at me that could bruise or injure; given that my heel was bruised because my shoe insert fucking slipped the other day, imagine what would happen to me at a parade throwing hard objects at me. But now that I’ve gotten up and realized the impact of the loss of the hour…I’m debating whether or not the errands can actually wait until tomorrow after my work-at-home duties. I mean, I can’t get the mail today anyway, right, so I am going to have to go uptown tomorrow or after work on Tuesday. I do need to finish the final two chapters of the book revision today–I made some great progress yesterday, did I not?–and worry that running those errands could wear me out and put me out of the mood to work on it. Of course, there’s also no rule that says when I should run the errands; I could run them late this afternoon after I get the things I need to get done today completed.

Ooooh, doing something different. How not like me, right?

Yesterday was relatively pleasant. I worked on the book after I got up, did some stuff around the house, started reading Donna Andrews’ The Twelve Jays of Christmas (one can never go wrong with Donna Andrews), and then last night settled in for a rewatch of 2010, the sequel to Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, which I rewatched during the pandemic (I’d also already seen 2010; we rented it one night in the 1980’s but got incredibly high so I really didn’t remember much of it other than it made 2001 make a lot more sense; just as the book cleared up a lot of the stuff in the original that didn’t make a lot of sense). One of the things that I always enjoy about watching old science fiction movies is to see what they were able to predict right about the future and what they got wrong; just like in 2001, in 2010 Pan Am is still around, as is the Soviet Union. Part of the plot’s premise is that the US and USSR are on the brink of war over Honduras; at the time the book was written and the film made it was inconceivable to Americans–anyone of the time, really–that the USSR was actually on the brink of collapse and wouldn’t survive in that form for another decade. I also had to wonder, wouldn’t Jupiter becoming a second sun in our system dramatically alter our orbit around the sun and our climate? Even though we are much further away from Jupiter than we are from our actual star?

It’s kind of hard to imagine Earth going from a one-star system to a two-star without any other impact.

Then again, I am not an astronomer, so what do I know? I did enjoy the film the second time around; I’d forgotten that young John Lithgow was in it, as was Helen Mirren as the leader of the Soviet space team.

I also read a marvelous two-issue crossover between two comics, Nightwing and Superman: Son of Kal-el, featuring the bisexual new son of Superman, Jonathan Kent (which reminds me, I am way behind on Superman and Lois). Nightwing/Dick Grayson remains my favorite DC Universe character; I hope HBO MAX will drop a new season of Titans soon.

And on that note, I think I’m going to read some more Donna before I get back to my own manuscript. Have a lovely Daylight Savings Time Sunday, Constant Reader.