Category: errands

You’re Still the One

Yep, it’s here. Tonight starts the St. Charles parade schedule, and my life is going to be upended for the next two weeks. Tonight’s parades are Oshun, Cleopatra, and Alla. There are five Saturday, and three on Sunday. Remember–this is the warm-up weekend, the one where we get our throw-catching sea legs to prepare for the marathon to come next week.

As a result, rather than going in later this afternoon, I am going in to the office early this morning, so I can run important errands after I get off work and then can get to the gym and get my workout in before the parades start arriving. Heavy heaving sigh. I’m going to try to get some writing done, but it’s not going to be easy over the course of the weekend, what with eleven parades passing by at the corner. At least on Sunday they are all afternoon parades, so I’ll have the evening free before my two consecutive twelve hour shifts. The rest of the week I have to go in early so I can get home before the parking is all gone and they close St. Charles Avenue, and of course next Friday I’ll be strolling down St. Charles to the Quarter to pass out condoms, and then walking home that evening up the parade route. Yay for corn dogs and funnel cakes! They make everything better.

They do! Don’t be a hater, dear.

I did work on the Secret Project a little while last night; not much, but the character’s voice is starting to come to me more and I am seeing the story a little more clearly, so it’s a nice pass I am giving to this one, and hopefully this will be the pass that finishes it so I can move on to the next part.

Huzzah, I think.

New Orleans’ bipolar weather took a turn yesterday, dropping a ridiculous amount of degrees so it was bitterly cold when I came home last night; I suspect more of the same is in store for us this first weekend of parades, which kind of takes a lot of the fun out of parade-attendance; of course, rain will always be the worst parade weather. The high today is fifty-eight; it’s forty-five right now. I recognize that probably doesn’t qualify as cold enough weather to complain about in most of the country–but I don’t live in most of the country. So there.

I am also mapping out “Festival of the Redeemer.” It’s going to probably be longer than a short story, but not long enough to be a novel–have I mentioned this before? Probably, my memory is really a bit on the disgraceful side these days. It’s a complicated story, and how I want to tell it–in flashbacks as the couple the story is about wander the streets of Venice, sight-seeing, and climaxes while they watch the Festival fireworks from their balcony at the Gritti Palace–is complicated and will require careful planning; but that careful planning also means that I need to map it out before hand, in order to make it easier to write for me. It’s probably going to end up as a stand alone novella, sold as an ebook, most likely; but there are worse things I could do.

The whole novella conversation also has me wondering about this Chanse short story I’ve been writing, “Once a Tiger”–well, writing off and on for about two years now, if I am going to be honest–and now I am thinking it’s more sense, and more likely, that it would work better as a novella. It’s too much story for a short story, which was why it’s been stalled as long as it has been, and now I am thinking, well you can always just write the story you want it to be and see how long it actually winds up. I was trying to keep it to less than 6000 words, which is the max for Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock–which is what I always have in mind when I am writing a short story; they are the best paying and most prestigious market for crime short stories out there, so I always have an eye to sending any story I write (which isn’t being written on request or for an anthology) to them for consideration.

I’ve been in Ellery Queen twice already, and Alfred Hitchcock is still on my bucket list–although it takes a major commitment to send something to Hitchcock–the last story I sent them took over a year to be rejected, which is insane. But they also probably get a lot of submissions, and probably also request stories from people, too. Ah, well.

And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines. This morning is cold, and the day I am facing is going to be long, so it’s probably best to hit the ground running.

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He’ll Have to Go

Saturday morning, and I slept in until nearly eight thirty! Living large here, I have to say.

Yesterday was one of those days; the temperature dropped, as you may recall, and once again when turning on the heat Thursday night, it didn’t really come on–it did, but it never truly got warm in the Lost Apartment, either upstairs or down. So, I wound up having to stay home from work to wait for the HVAC guys, who actually arrived dutifully when they said they would (this is so rare as to merit mention), and worked on it for a while. They did eventually leave, and I went to the gym and ran my errands.  I don’t know if the heat is actually fixed or not; we didn’t need it last night anywhere other than the kitchen, and I have a space heater for in there (it never warms up in the kitchen, ever) but I did manage to get a lot of cleaning and organizing done. I also managed to start watching the film of The Talented Mr. Ripley on the iPad yesterday at the gym (the Anthony Minghella version) and it veers away from the book’s narrative much more than I ever had supposed; the character of Meredith (played by Cate Blanchett) doesn’t exist in the book, nor does the entire subplot about Dickie’s affair with the village girl in Mongibello. But the one thing I will say about this film–and the thirty or so minutes of it I watched–Matt Damon is exceptionally great in the role of Tom; far more so than Jude Law as Dickie (he was nominated for an Oscar; the film made him a star), and this just might be one of Damon’s best performances.

Paul, I believe, is off to the office later today, and has plans with friends to go watch Krewe de Vieux tonight; I intend to stay home and work on the Secret Project, get my taxes together and sent off to the accountant, and emails to answer. There’s also organizing and filing to do, and I need to do the floors; I always leave the floors for Saturday vacuuming. Paul’s absence also gives me no excuse for not reading and writing for most of the day; around the cleaning, at any rate–and I am actually looking forward to getting a lot of both done today.

I’m still reading Tracy Clark’s Broken Places, which is really good, and in fact, once I finish writing this I am most likely going to  head over to the easy chair and spend a few hours with it this morning before moving on to the Secret Project. I am also really enjoying Jason Berry’s City of a Million Dreams, which I am not very far into, but I feel confident in recommending just based on the introduction and part of the first chapter. I’ve not read Berry before–he’s local, and has written quite a few books, including taking the Archdiocese to task for covering up the sexual abuse of children–but I am impressed enough to start adding his canon to my TBR list. We started watching Avenue 5, which was much funnier than I thought it would be–and Hugh Laurie is terrific as the captain; the entire cast is actually quite good. We’re probably going to also start watching The Outsider on HBO, which presents a conundrum for me; I generally like to read the book while I am watching the TV series based on it (I did this with Big Little Lies, and found it to be incredibly enjoyable; I’ve not read the King yet, but once I am done with the Clark, I am definitely going to pull The Outsider down from the shelf and give it a go)., but I guess pulling down The Outsider and moving it up to the top of the TBR list won’t hurt anyone or anything.

Parades also start this coming Friday on the St. Charles Avenue route; the challenge is going to be continuing to write and go to the gym around my job and the parades; parade watching is always a blast–it will probably never get old for me–but it’s also exhausting and keeps me up later at night than I probably need to be awake, given how early I will have to get up the following mornings.

It’s also lovely to wake up and sit at my desk and glance around and see clean, clear counters and a sink that is primarily empty of dirty dishes. There’s a load in the dishwasher that needs to be put away, and a load of laundry in the dryer that also neede to be fluffed and folded, but like I said, other than that and the floors (and these stacks of file folders and scribbled notes scattered around my desk), there’s no cleaning to be done this morning. My muscles are tired this morning from the gym yesterday, but I’m not sore, and I feel more stretched than I usually do, which also actually feels good–I may just stretch out a bit a little later; I’d forgotten how good it feels to have stretched muscles as opposed to tight ones.

So, that’s the plan for today, at any rate. I’m going to go pour yet another cup of coffee, take my book and repair to the easy chair; after that, it’s back to the desk to do some writing and answer some emails (I never actually send them until Monday morning; emails beget emails, and I’d rather not wake up Monday morning at the crack of dawn with an insane amount of emails to answer; it’s too, too daunting to deal with on a twelve hour day).

I was also thinking the other day–thanks to a post by someone on Facebook–about books that should be paired together, like a good wine and some good cheese; how reading the two back-to-back can enhance the reading pleasure of both. Michael Koryta’s The Prophet (which is one of my favorite books), for example, pairs beautifully with Megan Abbott’s Dare Me (and you need to be watching the television adaptation of Dare Me); Alafair Burke recommends pairing Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent with Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, and there was one more I can’t quite remember, but it was also quite brilliant. (I also think pairing Stephen King’s Carrie and Christine together enhances the pleasure of reading each even more.)

I was also thinking about “event” books; Gone Girl was probably the most recent “event” book–a book that sold a gazillion copies and everyone was talking about. There have always been “event books”, which in the pre-Internet, pre-social media days was harder to have happen, and yet it did, all the time. Two such books from the 70’s include Thomas Tryon’s The Other and Peter Benchley’s Jaws; the fame of Jaws was spread even further by an event film based on it that has almost entirely eclipsed the book. Robin Cook’s Coma was another one of these; I intend to include The Other in my Reread Project this year, but rather than Jaws I am going to reread Benchley’s second novel, The Deep, and Cook’s second novel, Sphinx–which was Cook’s only non-medical thriller thriller.

And on that note, I am going to repair to the easy chair with my coffee and Tracy Clark. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader; I certainly intend to.

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Before the Next Teardrop Falls

Saturday morning and a bit chilly in the Lost Apartment this morning. I slept ridiculously well last night–only waking when the cat decided to turn me into his bed, climbing on me while purring deep and loud, and of course kneading me with his paws for a while, to make me more comfortable to lie on, I suppose? I was tired last night–the week rather wore me down–and so am glad and grateful to have gotten a decent night’s sleep.

Mary Higgins Clark died yesterday, at the age of ninety-two, which of course is terribly sad news for the crime/mystery community. I remember reading Where Are The Children–it was one of the those phenomena books in the 1970’s; it was everywhere and everyone was talking about it (like Robin Cook’s Coma, Stephen King, and several others) back in the days before social media and “viral” sensations; Mary went “viral” back in the day when it was much harder to go viral. I also read her second novel, A Stranger is Watching. I deeply enjoyed both books. Mary’s career lasted over forty years and forty best-sellers; she became a living legend during her lifetime.

I met Mary when I attended the Edgars for the first time, clad in my kilt and beret and feeling excited and awed to be at the biggest event in my writing community for the year; I was both intimidated by the glittering stars of the genre in attendance that evening, yet thrilled at the same time. I couldn’t help but think, as I drank champagne at the cocktail party before the ceremony, almost too intimidated to make eye contact with anyone, about how when I was a teenager dreaming about being a writer back in Kansas that I used to imagine being at events like this, surrounded by amazingly talented people. I had a few moments of feeling overwhelmed by the occasion. I finally took my second or third glass and sat down at one of the tables…only to be joined a few moments later by Mary and her husband. I had seen her the night before at the Agents and Editors party, when the winner of the award she had started with her publisher to honor women who wrote books like hers was presented. The winner that year was Hank Phillippi Ryan, for The Other Woman. I was too tongue-tied to say much of anything–I was still in too much shock to be sitting at a table with MARY HIGGINS CLARK, along with a serious case of Imposter Syndrome. I don’t remember what we talked about, but I do remember her asking me, in a very kind and interested voice, what I wrote–and I will never forget how she made me feel like both colleague and peer.

I’ve always regretted not getting a picture with her.

I decided, right then and there, to revisit Where Are The Children; I bought a copy soon thereafter and it has languished in my TBR pile ever since; but since I am focusing on The Reread Project this year, I am moving it further up the list.

Mary meant a lot to a lot of people, not the least of whom were her readers, as well as her contemporaries. She was kind and exceptionally generous to other writers, particularly women getting started in the business, and was a shining light in our community.

It’s going to be strange being at the Edgars this year and not seeing Mary.

I have a lot to do today; I need to get to work on the Secret Project as well as cleaning up around here; I have some errands to run and a some other, non-career related things to get taken care of today, and of course, the email does tend to pile up over night. My regular use email doesn’t get nearly as much spam as the gmail account I used does–that’s the one I use for reader contact and also for donating to causes I believe in, and of course, once you donate to something you get put on a chain list and it gets shared and/or sold, and it grows and grows and grows. I don’t check it as often as I should to clean it out, and there will be times when I go there and there’s over 300 new emails; all of it, for the most part, junk. I’ve finally started unsubscribing to mailing lists there, but it never seems to quite do the trick.

I also have a lot of organizing to do; I have to stay organized if I intend to get anything done and not miss anything. So, after I finish this, I am going to curl up in my easy chair for about an hour to read Dread Journey by Dorothy B. Hughes, and then once I am fully awake I am going to start organizing and going through emails and so forth. I also have two blog posts, about The Talented Mr. Ripley and Kirkland Revels, to finish writing; perhaps today will be that day.

And on that note I am going to get another mug of coffee and head to the easy chair with Ms. Hughes. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader.

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Heartbreaker

Thursday rolling into my world like nobody’s business. I cannot believe how quickly time moves the older you get. I mean–parades are starting soon! MADNESS! The lead-up to the parade season part of Carnival always seems to fly past; it’s also interesting that the first parades this year are on Valentine’s Day–talk about your double whammy. Without enough vacation time this year to take the parade days off–I’ll probably wind up taking Lundi Gras as a vacation day–it’s going to be quite interesting trying to schedule my office hours around getting home early enough that the streets aren’t closed off, and of course, parade traffic.

Just thinking about it makes me tired.

But I’ve been making to-do lists this week and tearing through them; a great sign of productivity for me, and there are very necessary; I need those lists to keep me going and aware of what all I have to get done. I even wrote yesterday for a little while–not long–on the Secret Project, but most importantly, I discovered the character’s voice. This is always key for me when I’m writing; until I find my main character’s voice I struggle with the actual writing. I was most pleased to find the voice finally yesterday; I had already started writing the opening but it wasn’t feeling right; so I basically revised/rewrote the 1500 words or so I had already done yesterday, and should be able to get even more done before Monday.

That’s the goal, at any rate.

I also want to finish reading Dorothy B. Hughes’ Dread Journey, which is fantastic, and I can’t wait to get back into it. After that I am going to start reading Tracy Clark’s series (the most recent is a nominee for the Grafton Prize, which is hella exciting–do people still say hella? It always annoyed me, and I think that might be the first time I’ve ever used it?), and then I am going to try to work my way through my TBR list. That list has grown exponentially since award lists have started coming out; heavy sigh. There’s never enough time for me to read, you know? I’ll go to my grave not having finished my TBR list, which is, of course, inevitable, really; there’s always new books coming out that I need/want to read. I am also terribly behind on some of my favorite authors–Donna Andrews, Michael Koryta, etc.–and then of course there’s all the classics I want to read as well, and then there’s the Reread Project and…

Yeah. I’m like Sisyphus and the rock, aren’t I?

And look at me, up so early this morning and a-rarin’ to go! Having my entire day free, and not having to go into the office until four, was amazing. Oddly enough, I think I function best when I go to work later in the morning/early afternoon, even if it means getting off work later. Mornings have traditionally always been my most productive time–going back years to when I worked for the airline and always picked shifts that started at eleven am or later–and I hadn’t realized how much I missed having those mornings free. I still have to be at work early for long days on both Mondays and Tuesdays, but now i feel like with Wednesday as a really late day to play catch-up and then my normal 11-12 start times on Thursday and Friday, this is a schedule that’s going to really work for me.

Then again, we’ll see.

And on that note I am going to head into the spice mines and get through my emails, then do some cleaning and filing and possibly a little reading, possibly a little writing, before I go into the office. I’ve got laundry running right now, and of course, the dishwasher needs to be unloaded and reloaded and run again.

Happy Thursday, Constant Reader!

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Let’s Take The Long Way Around the World

Wednesday morning, and the beginning of a new era for one Gregalicious. I still only work a half-day, but now I work the second half of our testing schedule (4:30-8) rather than the first half (12-330) which I’ve been doing for quite some time now. When I asked my co-worker with whom I shift share if she’d mind switching with me once a month so I can make the monthly MWA board call, said she’d do it whenever necessary–and I realized, after we talked, that 1) it would actually be better for me overall to work the later half permanently and 2) it also worked better with her schedule for her to do the early, so we made the switch permanent (except for that pesky day when the parades get started, when I need to leave the office no later than 3:30 so I can get home before they close St. Charles Avenue. So, today is that first day, and while I do have a conference call this morning. I can spend the rest of the day getting things done around the house and I can even run the errands I need to run at a more leisurely place while still getting to work on time.

I love when things work out well, don’t you?

I was exhausted yesterday when I got home from work; partly because it was the second of my twelve hour shifts and partly because some days, my work is emotionally and physically draining. I’m a counselor, primarily for sexual health, and sometimes–well, sometimes it’s a difficult, draining job. I’m not complaining–I absolutely love my job and the work I do; my job actually makes a difference in some of our clients’ lives, which helps alleviate the fact that I’m actually a pretty awful person at heart. But I was so tired all I could do was, as usual, recline in my easy chair with Scooter curled up in my lap and cycle through Youtube videos. I enjoy Ms. Mojo’s list videos, for the most part, even when I don’t agree with their choices, and I don’t even remember which ones I was watching last night–although I do recall a lot of them had to do with Baby Yoda/The Child/The Asset and others with the Netflix series Thirteen Reasons Why. 

It’s also a bit hard to realize that Carnival parades start relatively soon; the 14th of February, St. Valentine’s Day, to be exact, with all the disruption that entails.

I also this week booked my tickets to fly to the Edgars and Malice Domestic; I’ll be flying into LaGuardia on the Tuesday of that week; attending the Edgar symposium on Wednesday and going to the combination nominees reception/anthology launch for the new MWA anthology that evening, and then helping with last minute things on Thursday before attending the banquet. Friday morning I will Amtrak from Penn down to Union Station in DC before riding on the Metro to Bethesda for Malice. (I’m flying home from Washington National, which will entail taking the Metro again–probably having to change lines once; I’ll have to investigate that further.) But I’m excited to go to Malice–I haven’t been to Malice in years, and I’ve only been once. I had a great time and met a lot of lovely people; I enjoy the Malice crowd very much, and the train trip down from New York the last time was one of the best times I’ve ever had on a train before–since there were many of us traveling down from the Edgars. The train was full of crime writers! (I did have an idea for a book or a story inspired by that trip–“Murder on the Acela Express”, but could never wrap my mind around how to actually write it; the Christie original which of course inspired the title, Murder on the Orient Express, requires the train to be stranded out in the middle of nowhere for a period of time, and I couldn’t figure out how to strand the Acela in the middle of nowhere–even though now it occurs to me that it could just be the title that’s the homage rather than the story). I’ll probably be registering for Bouchercon in Sacramento later today or at some point this week–that’s going to be a rather long haul of a trip, but since I had to miss Dallas this past year I don’t want to miss the 2020 edition.

I’m still reading Dorothy B. Hughes’ delightful Dread Journey, but was too tired to read anything last night.

I also have to start reading some books to prepare for an interview I am doing for the Sisters-in-Crime quarterly, and am hoping to get some work done on the Secret Project today before heading into the errands and the office.

The kitchen is also a disgraceful mess this morning. Heavy heaving sigh. But at least I have time to do something about it before I head into work today.

And on that note, it’s time to head back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader!

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Amazed

Show of hands: who predicted I wouldn’t get as much done yesterday as I wanted to? I was pretty confident that would wind up the case, as it always is. But I did get a lot done yesterday–some of it even writing-related, so have a seat, guilty conscience!–and that pleases me. I am hopeful I’ll be able to get more done today as well. Granted–it’s easy to say that as I sip my first cup of coffee. I also stayed in bed later this morning than I wanted to–since I woke up at seven on my own yesterday I thought perhaps this morning would be the same so I didn’t set an alarm–but I wound up getting up at eight, so that wasn’t too terrible I also hit a wall yesterday around four thirty–I got very tired–and so I repaired to the easy chair to finish reading my book.

It’s rather gloomy out there this morning, and it’s chilly here in the Lost Apartment–the space heater is on–and I’m a little annoyed by this return of coldness. Yesterday. while starting out chilly, eventually turned into quite a beautiful day; I didn’t even wear a jacket when I went out to run my errands. But that’s okay; I probably won’t have to go out into much today, or at least I hope not.

We watched a lot of the figure skating championships yesterday–will probably do so again today; I think the men’s is on this afternoon and Europeans is on tonight–and Paul’s been watching the Australian Open on his computer. We’re very behind on all the shows we watch, and there are also any number of new shows we want to watch–or shows we watch have returned for another season, which is very cool–and of course, the Williams Festival is approaching, which means late nights at the office for Paul; yes, it’s about that time when I become a Festival widow again. I should be able to get a lot of reading done during this time–which is what I generally use it for. I got a copy of Lori Rader-Day’s new novel yesterday in the mail, The Lucky One, and since I’m moderating that panel, I’ll need to read it soon.

I also have to make travel arrangements today for some upcoming trips in this new year; Bouchercon, Malice Domestic, etc.

Ah, it’s raining. That explains the gloomy grayness outside.

It’s the kind of day, really, where I’d rather curl up under a blanket and read all day, quite frankly, but I can’t do that. I need to work on the Secret Project, and there’s all kinds of other things I also have to get done today–odds and ends, emails to answer, etc. I’d also like to make some headway on getting my taxes at least started; I am missing only one 1099 form, and once I have that I can turn everything over to my accountant and get my return filed, which will be lovely.

I did finish reading Elizabeth Little’s Pretty as a Picture, which is fantastic–and then I started reading Dorothy B. Hughes’ Dread Journey when my energy finally flagged in the late afternoon.

pretty as a picture

They say a picture’s worth a thousand words.

That’s not what I’d say.

I’d say it depends on the picture. I’d say it depends on the size and the color and the subject and the print and the framing and the focus and the composition. I’d say it depends on what you were doing the hour before, the day before, the year before, the life before. I’d say it depends on whether you’re looking at it on a wall or scrolling past it on a screen or cutting it carefully out of a book, digging your knuckle into the gutter of the spine because the margins are so small and the blades are so long and it’s impossible to get a straight line, but you don’t want to dig up a guide and an X-Acto knife because you aren’t willing to wait, you have to have it, you have to have this picture, right now, and your kitchen scissors are close enough and good enough–yes, good enough–and Jesus Christ, Marissa, when will you get it through your thick head: Imperfection is a price happy people pay to cradle the weight of something they love.

That’s what I’d say.

Elizabeth Little’s debut novel, Dear Daughter, is one of my favorite first novels and one of my favorite books of this past decade. Her novels–why they do focus on crime, or criminal activity–are more than just crime novels; they’re stories about women–messy, complicated, complex, interesting women you want to see get past not only their current crisis, but also pull their lives together. One of the most impressive things to me about Dear Daughter is that she didn’t wrap it all up neatly with a bow at the end, with justice being served and our heroine coming out of everything triumphant; she gave the ending a more realistic, this-is-how-it-would-play-out-in-real-life ending.

I’ve been waiting a long time for Pretty as a Picture, and it was worth the wait.

The story is told in a very tight, first person/present tense style that pulls the reader into the action and the head of our main character/narrator–Marissa Dahl, an up-and-coming film editor who has primarily worked on the films of her college best friend and current roommate, Amy,  an up-and-coming director. Marissa is socially awkward–there’s a lovely scene in which she talked about meeting a superstar director, Tony Rees, at the Venice Film Festival and pulls him into a fountain with her when she loses her balance–and very unsure of herself. She meets a guy named Josh, who winds up dating Amy, and having been interested in him herself, she now has become an incredibly awkward fifth wheel and has decided to separate herself from Amy, personally and professionally, to give Amy and Josh’s new relationship room to breathe and grow–and she’s more than just a little resentful about Josh, whom she now actively dislikes (which is also wrapped up in her own social awkwardness), which is why she ends up agreeing to work on a Tony Rees’ new film–a project wrapped in secrecy and sixteen page NDA’s. She heads out to Kickout Island, off the coast of Delaware, and even has a big security man–Isaiah–who picks her up at the local airport and takes her out there.

One of Marissa’s neuroses includes a fear of the water–and we eventually do find out where that fear came from.

The film turns out to be a fictionalized film version of an actual murder that took place on Kickout Island many years ago–the murder of a pretty teenaged girl; a murder that was never solved. Strange things are going on around the set–accidents, cast and crew being fired–and we slowly but surely are made aware, through Marissa’s eyes, that things are not as they seem…and then someone else dies, and Marissa is reluctantly on both cases.

I have to say, though, that my favorite characters–besides Marissa, whom I really liked for all her tics and strangeness and constant film references (which is actually very cool)–are the two teenaged girls she first encounters in the hotel kitchen while she is scrounging for something to eat–Grace and Suzy–who are also trying to solve the original murder case. I’d read an entire series about these two girls.

But Pretty as a Picture is a great read; well-written and clever and witty and snarky at points, but an enjoyable read with a complicated, twisty plot that never condescends to the reader. Well worth the lengthy wait for this second novel by Elizabeth Little–the only problem is now I have to wait (hopefully not as long) for her third.

Old Fashioned Love

Saturday and football is completely over–at least for me, thank you, Saints–until September (or late August, it seems to start earlier and earlier every year), so Saturday spreads out before me like an unpainted canvas, waiting for me to add colors and depth and so forth.

How fucking poetic.

But I woke up without the alarm at just before seven this morning, so hopefully that means I’ve trained myself to get up at that time now so it won’t be an issue going forward. During my most productive periods, I always got up around seven in the morning to accomplish things before going into the office; I can still get things done at night, of course, after work, but now I need the extra time and hopefully I will be able to continue on this productive path. I got up this morning and read through a gift from Paul he left on my desk–a commemorative magazine about the LSU season, the first of many I imagine I’ll be getting over the course of the next few weeks/months–and then finished reading the new Elizabeth Little novel, Pretty as a Picture, which I really loved, and now here I am at my desk, writing my blog and getting ready to start cleaning up this disgrace of an office area before running my usual Saturday errands–mail, cat food from the vet, groceries–and hopefully, getting some writing done. I also still need to write blogs about three books I’ve read recently: the reread of Victoria Holt’s Kirkland Revels, the reread of The Talented Mr. Ripley, and of course, the new Elizabeth Little.

I also have to decide what I am going to read next–something from the Diversity Project, perhaps, or possibly the Reread Project? Or maybe something new from the TBR pile? I do have that new edition of Dorothy B. Hughes’ Dread Journey…and one can never go wrong with Hughes. Added plus: an intro by the divine Sarah Weinman. Or perhaps something non-fiction? Decisions, decisions, decisions, and such a wealth of treasures to choose from, as well. I’m almost finished with Richard Campanella’s Bourbon Street, which is fantastic–and have bookmarked lots of pages for further investigation or ideas for writing other stories, and books. I need to get to work on the secret project, and I also need to get started on a short story I promised that is due on March 31st. And there is ever so much filing that needs to be done–I’ve decided to start on a massive new project that is far overdue; my file cabinet, in which over the years I’ve simply lazily tossed files into without any sense of organization or order, and always push off because, of course, it would take forever. But yesterday at the office I also worked on a filing project I’ve been avoiding for weeks, and it was ever so satisfying.

I’ll never completely understand my reluctance and hesitation about doing things I actually enjoy and find satisfying: organizing, filing, writing, going to the gym. Why is it always an effort for me to do things I enjoy? Why won’t I ever actually, you know, do those things? And without fail, every time I do, when I am finished I feel terrific and feel a sense of accomplishment which is eminently satisfying.

I really don’t get it. Perhaps I should start seeing a therapist again.

Although in fairness, I did get tired of my old therapist looking at me with his eyes wide open and his jaw dropped.

So many things I really need to be working on…but I am definitely leaning towards reading the Hughes next, and I think once I’m finished with Bourbon Street I’ll read John Shelton Reed’s Dixie Bohemia next. I really do enjoy learning about New Orleans history–and by extension, Louisiana’s–and it also inspires me. I’ve made so many notes for potential short stories and novels, which, if I’m lucky, maybe someday I’ll have the time to write to actually turn about ten percent of those ideas into a finished, publishable product.

And on that note, I should probably head back into the mines for spice. Have a lovely Saturday, everyone.

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Sweet Desire

Friday morning and it’s a bit chilly here in the Lost Apartment this morning–but the temperature’s supposedly gradually rising from how cold it was at the beginning of the week.

Hilariously, I have just one jacket–one really doesn’t need more than one in New Orleans–and it’s a wonderful black leather jacket I’ve had since before Katrina, I think. I believe it was a gift from my mother; I’m not entirely sure. I had a great leather jacket before this one, but the sleeve ripped on a door frame nail, and I think I got this jacket to replace it? I don’t know, the jacket is old. I’ve been struggling with the zipper, which would sometimes jam–it did walking in the snowfall in New York Saturday night–but as I waited for the parking lot shuttle here at the airport, I managed to zip it all the way up. (Every time I have trouble with the zipper I think I need to get this zipper replaced, but have never done it because, you know, procrastination) When I got out of the car at home, I realized that the zipper teeth had come apart at the bottom, and had separated all the way up to my chest. I tried to get the zipper teeth back together so I could unzip it, to no avail. Finally I pulled it up over my head like a sweatshirt and ripped the zipper open, thinking, great, now I HAVE to get the fucking zipper replaced. Heavy sigh. But as I emptied my suitcase into the washing machine, Paul–who was upstairs reorganizing our disaster of a shared closet, came down the stairs with a lovely jacket on a hanger. “Is this yours?” he asked. I had no memory of buying it–I still don’t–but it’s gorgeous and my size. We finally had to assume that I bought it at one of our trips to the outlet mall in Gonzalez, probably with the intent to take it to New York for the January board meeting years ago–and then it got swallowed into the closet and completely forgotten.

FOR YEARS.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been wearing this week, and now I have a terrific winter coat to take next January to New York with me.

It also should go without saying that now I am really curious about what else is in that closet that I’ve forgotten about.

This has been a lovely week of getting re-acclimated to my normal existence, and I’ve actually been having a lovely time. My new duties as Executive Vice President of MWA have forced me to get organized and start planning my time better–and I’ve also slept remarkably well all week. I’ve also started setting my alarm to get up at seven on the mornings I don’t have to go in at eight–while the extra sleep is absolutely lovely, I can’t lose that extra hour or two every morning. There’s always a lot of emails that need answering, and keeping up is going to be crucial–I can’t let myself get either overwhelmed or defeated by my emails. And I still need to have time to both write and read; the evenings before sleep just aren’t going to cut it anymore. So now I am determined to get up at seven every morning but Sunday–I’ll allow myself to sleep in on Sunday mornings, since Monday is one of those hellish six a.m. mornings–and I also am aware that once my body is trained to get up every morning at seven, I’ll probably get up at that time on Sundays, too. I need to start going back to the gym as well, and watching my diet again. I’m going to be fifty-nine this year, and so I should probably get back into a healthier lifestyle, which is going to be much harder now than it was when I was thirty-three and originally made that change.

Plus, I actually enjoy working out. But like writing, which I also actually enjoy doing, I always dread it and have to force myself to do it. #madness.

I am also looking forward to finishing Elizabeth Little’s stunning Pretty as a Picture. I am enjoying this book so much, Constant Reader–you have no idea. I’m also learning a lot about how a movie gets made, behind the scenes, which is something I’ve always been interested in. I need to get some serious writing done this weekend too–despite the US Figure Skating Championships, the European Figure Skating Championships, and the Australian Open all taking place over the course of this weekend. Yikes. I also have to go to the grocery store and make plans for trips later in the year and oh my God there’s never enough time but you know what? To-do lists are fantastic, and were always the key to my getting everything done in the past.

We also have to finish watching Messiah, Sex Education, and get caught up on Dare Me. Hilariously, a few weeks ago we had nothing to watch; now we have too much to watch.

And on THAT note, tis back to the spice mines. Happy Friday, everyone!

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I’ve Always Been Crazy

Yesterday was rough. I was so tired all day, but somehow I managed to power through it all–God only knows how. It wound up not being that bad of a day, to be honest–although I kind of just drifted through the day and don’t really remember a whole lot of it, if I’m being completely honest.

But I am still so damned proud of the LSU Tigers. National champions, again. Just amazing, absolutely amazing. What an amazing season, what a fabulous joy ride for us LSU fans. This team will be remembered forever, just like the 1958 national champions are still talked about today. The entire season was a non-stop highlight reel.

Carnival this year is going to be lit.

And now it’s back to reality–although none of that feels quite real yet.

Tomorrow morning I leave for a short weekend in New York; I return to New Orleans on Sunday, and of course Monday is a holiday so I have a day to relax and recalibrate and recover from what is certain to be an exhausting trip; New York always wears me out. I’ll be busy the entire time–it’s a business trip–so making time to see friends isn’t really going to work out this trip; but I should be returning in late April/early May and maybe that trip I’ll be able to see and hang out with friends–I know so many people in New York it’s scary; I could go up for weeks and not see everyone.

But I slept really well last night–I was exhausted, so no real surprise there–and feel rested enough this morning to be able to focus and get back on the get-shit-done train. I need to swing by this morning and get the mail on my way to the office, and I should be getting started packing this morning, as well as cleaning the kitchen. I’ll have to leave for the airport tomorrow morning around eight–flight is at eleven, and have to account for traffic and shuttle from the parking lot to the terminal, so I won’t really have time tomorrow morning to do much more than drink some coffee and shower.  I need to make some headway on a new secret project–which I am focusing on to the exclusion of all other writing, at least for now, and I hope to have it all finished by next week so I can get back to finishing Bury Me in Shadows–and I am taking The Talented Mr. Ripley with me to read, along with Blanche on the Lam by newly minted MWA Grand Master Barbara Neely, and Pretty as a Picture, the new Elizabeth Little novel, which I have in ARC form. I may take one more book with me–just to be on the safe side, since reading is my favorite way to spend time in airports and on airplanes.

And hopefully, this trip will kick my ass into gear when it comes to reading. My reading has fallen off dramatically since I read for the Edgars in 2018–judging almost always, inevitably, burns me out from reading and it takes me a while to get back up to reading for pleasure again (having said that, though, I read some absolutely amazing books in 2019). I don’t think I’m going to judge again–it’s very time consuming, for one, and you don’t really get the chance to enjoy and savor the books the way I prefer; I intend to go back and reread the five books we selected as finalists and winner at some point, so I can enjoy them as reads rather than reading them critically, with an eye to selecting the best; the five books we selected were all fantastic, so they deserve to be read with an eye for enjoyment. Reading for an award also throws me terribly behind on my pleasure reading–I am now perhaps three or four books behind on my Donna Andrews reading, and this shall not stand! It always sucks to get behind on your pleasure reading because new books are coming out all the time and that makes it harder to get caught up and then you end up with a 2 or 300 hundred book TBR list and–

Yikes.

Not to mention how far behind I’ve allowed myself to get with my writing. But my weekends are free now–football is over and so I have no excuses any more for not getting a lot of writing or editing or reading or all three done every weekend anymore. We’ll probably watch LSU Gymnastics every Friday night–and of course, figure skating season is kicking into gear again too–but for the most part, there’s no reason why I can’t get back to work on the weekend as well as getting my fat old ass back into the gym regularly either; I intend to return to the gym on Monday and start slowly whipping this tired, flabby, sagging body back into some kind of shape again. People have been asking my lately if I’ve lost weight–I didn’t think I had, and I weighed myself yesterday to discover that I have not, in fact, lost even a pound since the last time I weighed myself. I’m not so concerned about losing weight, to be honest, this time around; I’ve come to accept 212 as the weight I am doomed to carry on my frame for the rest of my life, but I can at least trim some of the excess body fat off and get the muscles firmed up again.

I also have a short story I need to get written. I really need to make a list, don’t I?

And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines for the rest of the morning before I head back into the office. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader!

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Two More Bottles of Wine

The weather, apparently, is going to be terrifying today.

I’d planned to run errands, but with the terrible forecast I think it’s best if I stay at home today and ride out the stormy weather. Hail? Flash flooding? Tornadoes? YIKES! And it does look foul out there outside my windows–an eerie gray light and pouring rain, grayish-dark clouds covering the sky. The gutter that drains the back and side yards, running alongside the walk, is full and overflowing; but water isn’t cascading off the house and through the drain pipes. So, yeah, probably best not to go outside.

Okay, that thunder was loud and long. Definitely not going anywhere today.

It’s okay, though; I have plenty to keep me occupied. There’s lots of writing to be done and laundry to put through its cleansing paces; I have reading to do and some other things I have to get taken care of over the course of this lovely time away from the office. I’m starting to get busier, which means I need to guard my time more jealously, budget it accordingly, and perhaps most exciting of all, start keeping lists again.

That gives me such a charge, you have no idea.

I am one of those sick and twisted individuals who gets more done the more he has to do; the luxury of free time lends itself to more leisure, I find–as well as a reluctance to leave the inertia behind. I had a lovely time last weekend, listening to music all day Saturday while doing some important catching up on lo those many things I always tend to let slide and keep on sliding; a body at rest tends to stay at rest–and there’s nothing I love more than proving just how true that axiom actually is. It’s amazing–even this morning, I woke up just before eight but the bed was so comfortable and warm and relaxing, I didn’t want to get out of it. Scooter climbed up on me shortly afterwards and fell asleep while purring, and of course that put me right back to sleep. But I am awake now, not groggy in the least, and confident that now that my body is in motion it will stay in motion. Huzzah!

I continue to read Richard Campanella’s Bourbon Street, and we are now up to the 1950’s. I’m really enjoying my sojourns into New Orleans’ past; these histories are helping me get a better understanding of my home city, which I love more than anywhere else I’ve ever lived. It’s hard to explain sometimes to people, but New Orleans is home more than anywhere; I just have always felt welcomed and a part of the city’s fabric, connected in a way I never did anywhere else–and it’s quite frankly shameful that it’s taken me so long to start studying New Orleans history. They are also helping me with my first real foray into writing historical fiction; I did write “The Weight of a Feather,” which was set loosely in the early 1950’s, but “The Affair of the Purloined Rentboy,” my attempt at writing in the Sherlock Holmes canon, is definitely taking me back into a time I am completely unfamiliar with; recreating the New Orleans of November, 1914 is going to be one of the more difficult things I’ve ever done–which makes it all the more exciting, quite frankly.

We watched another episode of Messiah last night, and I have to say, this show is incredible. I can’t recommend it enough. We’re three episodes in, and for me, one of the best indicators of how good a show is how easy it is to get lost in the story; that when the credits start rolling it comes as a shock because it doesn’t seem like you’ve been watching for an hour. That’s how every episode of Messiah has been so far; and as I’ve said before, there’s nothing quite so fascinating to me as religion and religious history. Given how evangelical Christianity is trying to turn our country into a theocracy, and has been for quite some time (the separation of church and state in this country has always been an ideal we never have quite reached), it’s always interesting to me to think about the return of Jesus as supposedly prophesied in the Bible (I’ve never been convinced that Revelations is anything other than the ravings of a madmen rather than actual prophecy–but all of the end times/Rapture stuff traces back to that particular book of the Bible; as well as to The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey, a huge bestseller back in the 1970’s and, in my opinion, the beginning of all the Rapture/end times stuff; but that’s for another blog post after I reread the Lindsey book.) and how modern day evangelicals, with their Prosperity Gospel and other nonsense would react–a friend and I refer to the Jesus they worship as “Republican Armani Jesus,” or RAJ for short; that’s why Messiah is so interesting to me. It’s also remarkably well-done.

LSU’s football team arrived in New Orleans last night, which I watched on various social media feeds. It was kind of cool seeing how people lined up on the highway to hold up signs and flags and cheer for the team on their way to New Orleans from Baton Rouge, and there was a mob scene at the hotel on Canal Street when the busses finally pulled in. The route through Baton Rouge was also clogged with fans cheering them on–and you can actually feel the electricity in the air here yesterday. I put in an eight hour day at the office yesterday, and shockingly enough, despite the fact that I had to drive through the Quarter and the CBD at five thirty on a Friday night–the worst day and time for traffic of the week, plus the team was arriving around that time–it only took me a little over twenty minutes to navigate the crowded streets and traffic.

We do love our football teams down here in the bayou country.

Monday is going to be insane.

 But in the best kind of way, really.

Hmm, there’s a lull in the storm. It’s eerily still outside; no wind, no rain, and just really gray and weird. I don’t see our outdoor kitties–we have a new addition; an orange-and-white tuxedo kitty we’ve dubbed Simba. He’s really sweet, and he and Tiger seem to have a wary frenemy relationship. Simba is far too friendly and affectionate to be feral; I don’t know if he’s someone’s cat in the neighborhood that they let roam free, or if he belonged to the asshole college students next door who recently moved away and they left him behind–which really pisses me off. Simba’s ear is also not clipped, so at some point we’re going to need to catch him and take him in to see if he is chipped. I hope, if he is abandoned, he and Tiger are holed up safely under the house or somewhere out of this rain.

It would be so easy for me to become a crazy cat lady.

I think it’s about to start raining again; there was some severe thunder just now.

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

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