Category: errands

The Name Game

And here we are, with a truly strange schedule for work-at-home Friday, as I have some things to get done today outside of the house; Sparky needs some shots (and his Freddy Krueger like claws trimmed, thank you baby Jesus), and we are going to go to Costco at some point. I made a list last night (I’m sorry, but those sausage egg and cheese microwave breakfast sandwiches from Jimmy Dean are addicting), and hopefully it won’t exhaust me. One can hope, at any rate. I did manage to do some of the dishes and get started on that, but was a bit tired and Sparky needed some attention, one thing led to another, and next thing I knew Paul was home and we were getting caught up on Agatha All Along1 and watched another two episodes of American Horror Stories, which continues to be much better than we remembered. I would have sworn we stopped watching, but per Hulu, we’d watched all of the previous two seasons? I don’t know, I might have to revisit an episode or two of the previous seasons to trigger my memories. (It does bother me a little bit that I don’t remember things anymore; I seem to have forgotten a lot–but sixty three years of things to remember is apparently more than my storage banks inside my skull can handle.)

I did pick out a story yesterday for that other anthology I want to submit to–which means I need to get working on it this weekend, as well as other writing chores around the football games tomorrow. The Saints lost last night, so I don’t have to worry about watching them on Sunday, so that should be a good writing day for me. I’ll mostly be watching the Alabama-Tennessee game and the LSU-Arkansas game (but keeping an eye on the Georgia-Texas game, which is on at the same time), which makes my Saturday a little freer. I could watch the Auburn-Missouri game (the early game), but that’s a proper time for me to run errands and be home before the bigger game at 2:30. The living room really has gotten out of control and I need to get that under control this weekend as well. So, the plan for the weekend is to have a good writing weekend and a good “get things taken care of” goal is not a bad thing by any means. I think I am going to drive up to Kentucky next weekend for a week, see my grand-nephew (!!!) play football, that sort of thing and spend some time with Dad.

I also got caught up on The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, which is the only reality show I am really watching anymore (I’ll watch Beverly Hills when it comes back, but the others are getting a bit tired for me; I honestly think we’ve reached max exposure for them and they’ve peaked), and at some point I’ll probably have to get to work on writing out my perceptions and thoughts about this cast, and why I started enjoying and watching so late in its run (I have a problem with shows with criminals in the cast; so by the end of the first season we already knew Jen Shah was one, and I just can’t support that; just like Teresa Guidice’s conviction ended my watching New Jersey–which I was already hate-watching by then); I have only watched the previous season of SLC, and it was quite good. I do have some other thoughts about reality television and why I watch (I think the night time soap comparison that the horrible Camille Paglia made in an interview a while back was spot on; she can be right sometimes, even if she is awful in general) that will probably go into an essay at some point; I also want to do something on gay reality shows, which are generally awful (despite believing, from time to time, that a gay show would be amazing–RuPaul’s Drag Race has, after all, pretty much taken over the world and made her a billionaire–but they are always tragic disappointments)–anyone remember the The A-List? Real Friends of West Hollywood?

My coffee is quite marvelous this morning, I must say. I slept really well last night (which seems to be more of a daily occurrence anymore, which is wonderful), and I feel rested and ready to go today. Once I finish this I am going to work on the dishes and the kitchen, and unpack my backpack. My work at home today is mostly correcting paperwork and some on-line trainings, which is lovely and shouldn’t make me tired in the least before it’s time to punch the clock and then spend the rest of the evening reading or writing until it’s time to catch up on our shows–for some reason Grotesquerie wouldn’t stream last night, and there are more episodes of American Horror Stories to check out. I also want to go back and watch The Assassination of Gianni Versace, which I’ve never watched all the way through (Paul disliked it). It also looks like a beautiful day outside. It’s been colder this week than usual; it’s only 63 today and the sun is our and the sky is that lovely New Orleans blue with puffy white clouds lazily drifting across.

And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, wherever you are, and I may be back later; stranger things have happened.

Those are some legs. Sheesh!
  1. Absolutely loving this show, and Joe Locke is fantastic, which pleases me to no end. ↩︎

Game of Love

Thursday morning and I forgot to set my alarm last night; oh my! Bad Gregalicious; bad Gregalicious! I did run my errands last night after I got off work, but by the time I got home I was more tired than I expected. I intended to do the dishes at the very least, if nothing else, and sure enough, I sat down in my chair to catch up on the news and let Sparky treat me like prey (my entire body is covered in scabs), but relaxed so deeply that when Paul came downstairs–he was home and I didn’t know it–to watch some television, I was all fuck it and blew everything off. We watched this week’s English Teacher, which isn’t as funny as it initially was? Paul agreed with me, so it’s not just me being hypercritical of a show with a gay male lead–which is always my fear. The representation is great, but I am not sure if I’m missing something, or if it is the show itself. Something for me to think about, I guess, in greater length once the season is over and we can reflect on it as a whole, rather than just as individual episodes. It’s a very fine line–you don’t want to idealize a marginalized character, but at the same time the series lead has to be likable and relatable; which is a problem because you run the risk of castrating him–and this character has a MUCH healthier sex-life than Will Truman ever had in all those many seasons of Will and Grace. we also watched an episode of American Horror Stories, which was creepy and disturbing, but at least it was interesting. The show reminds me of the great old anthology shows, like Tales from the Crypt and Night Gallery1, and yes, some episodes are better than others.

So tonight, obviously, I need to write some and clean up the house before my work-at-home day tomorrow. I know we’re planning on a Costco run, so I am going to need to do some serious work on the apartment to get ready for that. I also need to finish the desk chair, which is sitting, unassembled, in front of the fireplace–and there are any number of things in the living room that need to be gotten rid of. I have to take the boxes of books to the library sale Saturday; and I also need to start boxing up the books in the kitchen cupboards and moving them up to the attic, which also needs to be cleaned out. I need to work on the book this weekend, and maybe do some serious decision-making; I also need to work on polishing that short story and revising/finishing another by the end of the month. I feel a bit out of it this morning–the oversleeping didn’t help matters much by throwing off my daily rhythm, but I was wide awake when I got up finally, and I managed to not forget anything on my way out of the house. This should be a relatively easy and uneventful day at the office, and my supervisor will be back on Monday, thank you Jesus and pass the ammunition.

Wish me luck on all of that, please. I also need to make a to-do list for this weekend. There are some great football games on Saturday; LSU at Arkansas, Alabama at Tennessee, for starters. I’ll definitely need to run my Saturday morning errands early! I also need to read Gabino’s book; I hope I’m not giving the wrong impression–it’s nothing to do with the book, but more along the lines of being too tired to focus to read once I’ve done everything I’ve needed to get done every day. I am feeling better, getting more restful sleep, and I think I’ve adjusted to getting up early, little as I like to do so, but I always have that little rundown in the afternoon when I get overwhelmed with being tired…but it’s usually low blood sugar or something, because a snack will rev me back up again.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great Thursday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later. It’ll be a surprise!

  1. I remember watching Night Gallery as a child and loving it; I wasn’t able to catch reruns of The Twilight Zone until many years later; so to me, I always think Night Gallery when I think about Rod Serling, whose daughter I met and she was absolutely charming. ↩︎

Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag

Well, yesterday wasn’t so bad, really. The office didn’t burn down in my absence (didn’t think it would) and there was no mess for me to clean up anywhere, so that was nice. I also felt good for most of the day; I had energy and didn’t feel sleepy in the least. I managed to come home from work and get the thing done that needed to be done for today; I also revised and rewrote that short story before discovering the deadline is actually October 20th, so I have time to go over it once again before turning it in for the perusal of the editors. It’s a reach to meet their theme, but nothing ventured and all that. I won’t be disappointed too much if they turn me down. I also have another story to write by the end of the month, and I am not sure which one I have on hand to use for it. Something to look into for this weekend, methinks. And I need to get back to work on Scotty. Heavy sigh.

But I never felt any stress about the deadlines, and I managed to get both things worked on, which I am quite pleased with myself about, frankly. I am rather pleased with the new version of the story; it really does need to be revised one more time (not the least of which is that it’s too long; I always think 5k when writing a story but the CFS for this is 4k max, so some pruning and tightening is in order. I also managed to sleep really well again last night and feel great this morning. I wasn’t tired when I got home, either. After I got through with working, I happily collapsed into my easy chair and caught up on the news. I do think this approach to this year’s election–staying calm and blocking the legacy media1–is the right way to go. I have felt a lot less stressed about everything without losing my shit at the insanity of said legacy media’s insane bias. It doesn’t mean that I’m not worried about the outcome–I am, very much so–but the weight of it all doesn’t need to rest on my shoulders. Thank God for anxiety medications, and the clear-headedness those medications give me.

Today’s goal is to figure out what short story to use for this other call for submissions that is due at the end of the month. I literally have no clue, off the top of my head, and so I am going to have to go through the files and figure out which one I can either finish or revise. A tough problem to have, don’t you think? I kind of want to work on short stories at the moment, which has everything to do with revising one yesterday. Once the dam breaks, and all that stuff and nonsense. I’m just delighted to be writing again, and even more delighted that I am prioritizing my work for once (and from now on). I’ll still do the occasional volunteer thing now and again, but nothing that requires a lengthy commitment or has any urgency; I’ve sacrificed my mental health and my writing for far too long on things that ultimately had no benefit for me other than satisfaction–and sometimes I never even got that, so it’s time for someone else to do whatever it was I thought I was accomplishing. I also have little to no interest in my legacy. I am always amused a bit when I hear writers talk about things like that. For one thing, that’s not for me to decide. Did I make a contribution to American letters? The mystery genre? Queer writing? Most likely not; I am not going to be studied in future college lit courses–genre, for one; gay for the other–and once I’m gone–or stop producing work, I’ll be forgotten, and I am fine with that. The books will all float around on the Internet for years after my death so they are there for the finding. Maybe in a hundred years some scholar will stumble over my work and make a case for me as one of the unsung heroes of crime fiction, but I rather doubt it. In either case, I won’t be here to see it, so why even worry about it? Talk about a waste of energy!

We’re having a cold spell–a front for a few days–where the highs will be in the sixties and the lows in the fifties. It’s fifty-nine right now, brisk and crisp; it will definitely help me sleep and will definitely help bring the power bill down. We resist turning on the heat until it’s actually in the fifties inside, and the heat is far cheaper than air conditioning. I also need to run errands after work today, and then once I am home I need to progress on the apartment before settling into my chair for the evening. I’ve also got to figure out my doctor’s appointments and try to reschedule them all for the same day–or at least to have as many on the same day as possible. Sigh. This is what we call gumbo weather; when you spend the morning in the kitchen making a nice big pot of it–the cooking of it also keeps you warm, and it certainly does warm you up on the inside when you eat it. If the weather holds through the weekend I’ll probably make some kind of shrimp dish–shrimp creole or shrimp scampi or something like that. I also like making potato leek soup and white bean chicken chili (but that will require a Costco trip at some point). I do love the fall here in Louisiana…and it also looks like the two systems the Hurricane Center is monitoring aren’t going to develop into anything for a brief respite.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I may be back later; one never really knows for certain, does one?

  1. They have been committing journalistic malpractice since at least 2015, if not longer. ↩︎

Old Man from the Mountain

Tuesday morning and back to the spice mines blog. Huzzah! I feel a bit disoriented this morning, as one always does after even the shortest of trips, and was still pretty tired from the driving yesterday. I ran a few errands and cleaned up the kitchen, doing the dishes and puttering around the house for the most part. I’m still digesting Survivor Song–thinking about dystopian novels and stories–and we watched Outer Banks last night, finishing the first half of the season (all that’s available; the second half will probably drop in a month or do), which is ridiculous and campy and weird and fun, like the first two seasons were (the third was disappointing, really), so I hope that it will continue in this vein and leave the third season in the dust and past. But of course, taking a much-needed rest day has kind of put me behind the eight ball; I have work that’s due tomorrow and I don’t know how much time I will have this evening to try to get everything done as much as possible.

There are also two areas meteorologists are watching for hurricane development–one in the Atlantic, the other in the western Caribbean, off the coast of Central America–so we’re not out of the woods yet; hurricane season after all doesn’t end until December 1. We’re also getting a cold front coming in tonight, which means overnight temperatures in the fifties. Yikes! Practically the dead of winter. But I’ll be coming straight home from work, too, so hopefully the nice weather will hold out until then.

My, I’m exciting this morning. I do feel rested, and I do feel like I can get everything done I need to get done by tomorrow, but it’s still a bit daunting to think ahead and hope I won’t have to work through being tired. I also need to get some work done on the book, and I also need to finish the Scotty Bible; I only have three books left to get the notes from, and then I need to go through the whole thing one last time, and voila! It will be finished. I also need to fix some things in the chapters I’ve already written. I think I shall plan to get everything now finished by the end of the month, so I can spend November getting the rest of the first draft done. That sounds perfectly reasonable to me, actually, and so I think that’s going to be the plan going forward. I need to get this story revised, and I need to revise another for the Bouchercon anthology; I’m thinking I should submit something to it. It’ll depend on any number of other factors, of course; but a reasonable writing schedule should be easy to follow, methinks.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about that wretched professor who told me at seventeen I would never be published as a writer. In my utter obliviousness (part of never looking back, I’m afraid) I never made the connection in my head that it was that experience that derailed my college career and my twenties. I always assumed that it was the entire duality of living two completely separate lives as well as the HIV/AIDS pandemic that sent me spiraling down into a pit from which I didn’t think I’d ever emerge. I never wanted to be anything other than a writer, and being told by a person in authority (I was also always taught to respect authority, and I was only seventeen, so he was a PROFESSOR who KNEW what he was talking about, so if he said it–well, I had to believe it. I had been groomed my entire life to take the voice of authority as gospel and never to question it; so when he said that to me I saw my future yawning open as a life of quiet desperation and misery. I didn’t think I could ever truly be myself, and the only thing that had gotten me through my childhood–the dream of being an author–was ripped away from me. Is it any wonder that what I started basically doing was putting off adulthood? My development was so derailed, which is why I always write off my twenties as the lost decade (although it really carried over for another three years), and just don’t think about it much. But my resentment for that fucking asshole college professor is far deeper and much more powerful now, and I may need to revisit that essay I wrote about his skank ass.

Of course, I am over forty novels and fifty short stories into my professional writing career…and he never published anything. In fact, he was a bitter failed author; the definition of “those who can’t, teach” (which is a horrible phrase, really, that I hate and usually refuse to use, but I have no problem using it on that bottom-feeder) in bright three dimensional living color.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I hope you have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll chat at you later, okay?

Is It Wrong (For Loving You)

Well, that was a fun, if tiring, weekend..

I got to the hotel after dark Friday and felt very tired. Dad had gone to his alma mater’s football game with two of his teammates (I started to say old in the generic sense and then realized Dad IS old and so are they so best not to, or at least write a caveat so here we are). It was a peaceful, lovely drive and I was listening to my audiobook (Paul Tremblay’s Survivor Song and I HAVE THOUGHTS), and there wasn’t much traffic, if any. It was a beautiful drive, and I never cease marveling at how beautiful Mississippi and Alabama are. I had planned on stopping to eat at the Whataburger in Tuscaloosa, but for some reason the map app did not take me that way this time; it seems like I never come up here or leave the same way twice in a row. It always takes the same amount of time, though it’s been interesting seeing parts of both states I am not familiar with. I almost stopped at a Jack’s in some small town I passed through after leaving 20/591; but I thought there would be somewhere else before getting here.

NARRATOR VOICE: There was, in fact, nowhere else.

I always forget how little there is between Meridian and Tuscaloosa, or between Birmingham and Chattanooga. It’s best to eat when you get hungry, and get gas before you get down to a quarter tank else you could be fucked. I know I’ve been ravenous sometimes when I’ve had to wait till past Chattanooga to eat, and same for going up from Mobile to Montgomery. It’s weird to feel so anchored to Alabama, isn’t it? I don’t remember living here; I was two when we moved north. We came down to visit a lot, and I know for Mom and Dad (and my grandmother who also lived in Chicago) they always referred to these trips as “going home” and so I, too, have always thought of Alabama as home in a corner of my mind. I never felt like I belonged almost everywhere I lived once I became more aware of just how different I was from everyone else. I felt displaced, like my life was supposed to have happened in Alabama but it didn’t, so in addition to feeling different I felt almost like a transient everywhere. New Orleans is home now, was always meant to be my home, and I have never felt more like I belonged than I do there. I think my life would have been very different had I grown up here, maybe even harder or more difficult; I don’t know. New Orleans and Alabama are, oddly enough, the only places where I don’t feel like a tourist.

I’ve always written about Alabama, and I do sometimes think that somehow my Alabama stories are my best work, as far as the writing is concerned. The story I’m revising right now was the first work I turned into a college writing class (after the first course I took was such a horrific, unmitigated disaster that basically pulled the rug out from under me and derailed my life for years) that not only the professor was incredibly enthusiastic about, but the entire class was as well. This was the story that made me start believing in myself a bit more after the asshole professor derailed my life2 when I was seventeen. Anyway, I digress. Driving through the countryside after getting off the interstate up there always is weird to me in many ways, because it’s so different than I remember. When I was a kid, most houses in the county were old and made of wood, and there were still tin roofs around, although mostly on barns and out buildings on the farms. Now the houses are mostly brick, there are a lot of McMansions, but there are still a lot of blighted buildings rotting and falling to pieces where they stand. There are abandoned country stores and dead gas stations, the store built from cinder blocks and the rusting pumps still out on a crumbling concrete island. It’s also funny because I wrote Bury Me in Shadows from memory, having not been up there in over twenty years, and seeing the differences now…I guess I never had to worry overmuch about basing that book in a county based on where we’re from, and the differences are so striking no one would recognize it as the same.

Saturday I went with Dad to his high school reunion lunch, which was at a nice restaurant where we always eat every time I’m up there (they have the most amazing chicken fajitas), and that was nice. We headed back to the hotel after and spent the rest of the day watching college football games. The LSU game was amazing, but they sent me into despair a lot during the night. They won the game without ever having the lead! A bitterly disappointing loss for Mississippi (how many times have their dreams died in Tiger Stadium? It’s really no wonder why they hate us so much), but a very exciting game. The Tigers are now ranked in the top ten–which is great, but a big win does not a season make, if you know what I mean–and the rest of the schedule isn’t easy, either. Two road games in a row, then Alabama before one more road game at Florida before finishing out the season with two home games in a row. There has been a lot of great football games this season already, which has made it a lot more fun to watch than it has been in years. Saturday alone, there was the LSU game; Alabama-South Carolina (Alabama eked out a two point win); Tennessee beating Florida in overtime; Penn State-USC went to overtime; Oregon beat Ohio State by one point; and Vanderbilt kept up its winning ways by beating Kentucky. I ain’t going to lie, I am rooting for Vanderbilt to have a great season.

Yesterday I drove home, finished listening to Survivor Song, and then listened to the “My Dad Wrote a Porno”. I was very tired when I got home, very tired, so I spent the day in my chair getting caught up on the news from the weekend before we started getting caught up on our shows. I went to bed early and slept well–I was tired all weekend, but had slept well both nights, but not long enough. I did sleep a little later this morning (I took the day off) than I was expecting (but I also woke up at 5:30 the first time), and feel good. There’s still some residual trip hangover today, but I don’t mind that in the least. The apartment is a mess–I left it one when I left Friday afternoon, and so that needs to be handled today and I am also going to have to run some errands and get reoriented back into normality before heading back into the office tomorrow morning bright and early. I also have some things that I need to get done today–probably will be able to get all that done this afternoon–and then probably will settle into a relaxing evening. We started watching season four of Outer Banks last night, so we’ll watch some of that I am sure.

I didn’t have time to do much reading or writing this weekend, either, but I feel like today I can get to some of that. I do want to finish Gabino’s book this week, so I can move on to another as well.

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

  1. The two highways run together from Meridian to almost Georgia–somewhere in northeast Alabama at any rate; it really is always mostly a blur. ↩︎
  2. I also realized this weekend that horrible professor fucked up my life for a very long time, and I’ve never given him enough credit for unmooring me and setting me adrift. I’ve always hated him, but now I hate him even more, and what an abuse of power and control! He shouldn’t have been allowed near students under any circumstance. ↩︎

That Song Is Driving Me Crazy

Friday, and after I get my work at home duties finished, it’s time to head up to Alabama. It’ll be nice seeing Dad again, and I will be listening to Paul Tremblay on my way to and fro; Survivor Song, in case you were wondering. I’ve almost finished all of his canon, which means the last book will be saved until his next new one drops, so I won’t be out of his work to read (I know, it’s silly to do this, and maybe I’ll finally stop holding books in reserve because I don’t want to be out of that author’s work to look forward to *coughs* Daphne du Maurier *cough* Mary Stewart *cough* Shirley Jackson *cough*)1. I think I am going to have some down time while up there, so I can possibly get some reading of the new Gabino done as well. (Dad is doing some things with the other survivors from his graduating class2.) I did wind up sleeping in a little later than I intended, but I was very worn out by the time I ran my errands and got home from everything. I relaxed last night once I was home–Paul was at an event and didn’t get home until later (we watched this week’s Agatha All Along and the season debut of Abbott Elementary)–with Sparky (who was a demon cat for a lot longer than usual) and got caught up on the news while resting and waiting for Paul to get home. I feel a bit more rested this morning, but I have to drive for between five and six hours tonight, so I worry that I’ll be super tired when I get there tonight. We’re having a cold spell (for us) and the temperatures are very fall for us. Next week it’s going to be in the fifties at night, with highs in the seventies during the day. Woo-hoo! The season of sweat appears to be behind us at long last.

I saw hints and rumors that the same area in the western Caribbean that spawned both Helene and Milton might be looking to hatch up another one of these accelerated storms that will follow the same approximate path, which is horrifying; Nadine will be the name3. What a horrible season–and I also can’t help but remember former patterns, in which New Orleans and Louisiana got slammed pretty hard the year after Florida got hit four times in one year. (I always look for patterns, because on a deep level I find patterns very soothing)

I did do some work on writing last night; I started looking through the new Scotty to see where I was already wrong on things (I have always based his grandparents’ home in the Garden District on one specific house; I was writing it from memory, but in reviewing a lot of the photos I took of the house at one point, I saw my memory had been faulty and incorrect. I need to have some things wrong, of course, so people won’t know the actual house (or so the owners can’t sue me for having people murdered on their property), but it cleared up some confusion in my brain about what I was writing, and so I will need to go in and fix that. I think that’s my project for the next week; revising and correcting the chapters I already have finished, while also preparing a cast list and an outline as I go. I also have to come up with a synopsis and cover text and marketing copy for it; so those are all things I can work on over the next week. I also have to finish revising that short story for the anthology whose deadline is the 15th; I think I know how to really make the story finally work after all these years…and if they don’t take it, I can put the revised version in my new collection. I love that for me, and I also figured out what story I am going to write for another anthology I’ve been asked to contribute something to; and I also want to write something for another anthology whose due date is November 1–so I’d best get cracking on that, don’t you think?

I was starting to feel a bit overwhelmed and stretched pretty far this past week–lots of things to do, more pressure at the day job (and it’s temporary, Mary, so get over yourself), a messy home, a trip to take and another to plan, and of course my own pressures from deadlines and writing. That’s not even taking into consideration the existential crisis facing us in this upcoming election–blocking and avoiding all legacy media has been wonderful; their corrupt betrayal of the American public since 2015 (if not sooner; I am pretty sure they didn’t report on Obama fairly, either) has rendered them forever meaningless in my eyes. I am not nearly as stressed about any of this as I usually am. I am sure that’s partly the generalized anxiety disorder being medicated properly, and the other was a conscious decision. The deletion of Twitter has been probably the best thing I’ve done for my mental health since deciding last year to get the right medications for that (properly diagnosed at sixty-two at long last). It has freed up so much time–I thought of myself as a casual Twitter user, but now that I no longer have that wretched app, I am seeing that I used it a lot more than I ever thought, so breaking that wretched addiction and walking away from it for good was incredibly wise. Paul isn’t on social media at all, and he is much happier without it than I was with it all this time.

But now that I’ve had a good night’s sleep and got some extra, I am feeling good and like I can handle everything. I am not going into the office on Monday–I have some appointments so took the day off–so I am going to be able to get the house worked on some and run some necessary errands on that day to prep for the week. I’m going back to Kentucky later this month for a longer visit, but I’ve not really figured that out just yet, either.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines so I can get my work done and head north. Have a great Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow–and if not, definitely Sunday after I get back to New Orleans.

  1. There are also a couple of Agatha Christies I’ve not read–Death in the Air and Murder in Three Acts. ↩︎
  2. Yes, I can hear how grim that sounds once I started typing it out, but it’s accurate. How else to say it simply? They all graduated sixty-three years ago (and yes, I was born three months after my parents graduated), so they are all at least eighty-one–and much as modern medicine has extended longevity, they are also the last generation that was encouraged to smoke, along with all the other unhealthy ways they loved. Imagine cooking with lard, for one. ↩︎
  3. IMPORTANT CORRECTION: It was fake news. There’s nothing there right now, but it’s possible and any potential path of something that doesn’t exist is obviously incorrect. Sorry for including this, but I did say it was a rumor. ↩︎

As Soon As I Hang Up the Phone

Ugh, the forecast for Milton and Florida remains extremely dire this morning. I feel you, Florida. It also hasn’t escaped me that I am writing a hurricane book for Scotty and this hurricane is Milton–which is Scotty’s actual first name(!!!). I hope everyone able to leave were able to get out safely, and that those who could not are safe as they can be when this storm comes ashore.1 Please help out wherever you can for the victims of this, while not forgetting those still struggling to get over Helene’s fury. Awful, just awful. (And yes, hurricane victims DO need feminine hygiene products, so get the fuck over yourself, Senator Cornpone. I know how squeamish vaginas make you, but that doesn’t change women’s realities, you miserable piece of shit.) I will never understand why men like him hate women so much–and I don’t get how the women in his immediate family haven’t smothered him in his sleep yet, but here we are.

Yesterday was exhausting, not going to lie. This week has been exhausting at the day job this week. My supervisor is in London for two weeks, so I am loosely in charge of my program and I. Do. Not. Like. This. One. Bit. She’s been gone for two days. TWO DAYS. So many things have gone wrong, so many challenges have come up, and I’ve had to come up with workable solutions. It’s not that I can’t do this kind of work–I definitely can–but I do not like to do this kind of work. I don’t want to feel like something Sparky dragged in when I get home, so I am too tired to write or read or do much of anything. This is why I have never wanted to be in management, you know? But all I can do is my best–it’s hard to keep up with everything, I can see why she’s pulling her hair out on a daily basis–and hope that’s good enough. No pressure at all, right? But…I also don’t want her to come back to the office after two weeks and have everything be on fire–especially since I am going to Kentucky a few days after she gets back.

I am definitely leaving for Alabama on Friday. I am going to do my work-at-home chores, and then hit the road and head north. It’ll be nice to see Dad again; one of the only good things that’s happened since we lost Mom is Dad and I have become a lot closer and have spent a lot more time together than we ever have. It’s actually very nice. I just wish Kentucky wasn’t so far away; if he were over in Houston or Alabama, I could make it over there for a weekend every month like I used to do when I worked for the airline and lived in Tampa; at least once a month I’d hop a flight for Houston to go chill out and visit them. I missed that when they moved to Kentucky, but a twelve hour drive is still a twelve hour drive. It’s why I didn’t see Mom more, and that’s something I’ll probably carry to my grave with me.

I also had a ZOOM meeting last night with some writer friends about a project we’re working on, which is always delightful; spending time with writers, even if we aren’t specifically talking about writing and publishing, is always lovely. Paul got home late last night, and all I basically did after the ZOOM call was escape to my easy chair to be a Sparky cushion. I watched hurricane updates and the news, as is my usual wont, and Paul came home just as I was getting ready to go upstairs and go to bed. I slept well last night, which was great, and my brain feels alert and ready to go even if my body feels a bit tired. Tonight on the way home from work I am going to go uptown to get the mail and maybe stop to make groceries…I’m not so sure because I have to figure out how to feed Paul while I am gone–and the big grocery run will have to wait until I get back.

I also figured out how to rewrite a story for an anthology call for submissions yesterday, which is very exciting. I am hoping to get that all worked on and going over the rest of the week. Going to Alabama while I am rewriting an Alabama story–the very first one I ever wrote, back in 1983–and I think I can finally make the story work the way it should have all along. I’m also finding that lately I am solving a lot of problems in work of mine that has been stalled for a long time, which is very exciting. I am hoping to have a very productive 2025, in all honesty, and bearing any tragedies or disruptions (God only knows what’s around the corner for me) but there’s nothing wrong with making plans, you know? So what if plans can get disrupted for reasons that are out of my control? (There’s so little in life that is actually under our own control; the only thing we do control is how we handle things, how we react, and how it changes us in ways we won’t understand until later–sometimes much, much later.)

And I have, recently (pardon me if I mentioned this already) realized that, with my anxiety medicated and under control, I’ve been able to be a lot calmer and cooler about things, and realized how much of my own behavior was anxiety-driven and the result of “trauma” (I feel like this word is used too much…to the point where it’s becoming almost meaningless) I experienced and learned (not always the right lesson) from. I’ve also realized that I’ve never put myself first–especially not my own mental health–and that is going to be a huge priority going forward for me. People may not like it, but I also don’t give much of a fuck what other people think, you know? You don’t like me? Not my problem, really. I feel like that’s an important breakthrough for me. Maybe it’s homophobia, maybe they think I am an asshole, but it’s really none of my business what other people think of me, and it is assuredly not my problem. And it feels good, you know? I always worried that I was too selfish (been told that enough by toxic narcissists to believe it), and yes, I can be…but I also don’t want to let anything or anyone come between me and my writing anymore (well, that doesn’t include Paul, of course).

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great Wednesday–oh, it’s even Pay-the-Bills Day! I may be back later.

Why is “sweaty shirtless man holding a tire” a trope in physique photography? I’m assuming it’s because of Herb Ritts.
  1. After Katrina, I made the decision to never be one of those horrible people who blame victims for their bad luck; it isn’t cheap to evacuate by any means, and some people can’t afford to, don’t have an automobile that can last in evacuation traffic, or have some other reason they can’t go. Don’t judge them, for fuck’s sake, you heartless assholes. No one “deserves” this. ↩︎

I’m A Ramblin’ Man

And here we are, heading back into a Monday and a brand new work week. My supervisor is currently enjoying herself in London for the next two weeks, which makes me the go-to guy for all things testing related and for my program. It may be stressful and exhausting, or it could be totally smooth sailing. I’m also meeting Dad this weekend in Alabama. I’ll have to pick out a horror novel to listen to in the car….I suppose I could continue listening to the podcast I’m thoroughly enjoying, My Dad Wrote a Porno, but probably will go with a book. I’m going to take a week off later in the month and go up to Kentucky–which means more books to listen to.

It was, in some ways, a rejuvenating kind of weekend; I rested a lot Friday evening and Saturday, and as such, felt good yesterday. It was also a lovely day in New Orleans; I walked around the neighborhood to take pictures of the aftermath of a fire the other night just past the corner of Magazine and Hastings1 (she was renting one of the places for Mardi Gras, and had to find another place, obviously), then walked back home, got in the car because I needed gas, and after fueling her up I went to the Fresh Market. Paul was working with his trainer, and once he got back from the gym we watched two movies–The Fall Guy, which we really enjoyed and was a rather fun, charming movie (you can never go wrong with Emily Blunt, and Ryan Gosling was goofily adorable the way he always is) that had a truly terrific supporting cast as well, including Hannah Waddingham, and a true crime documentary that wasn’t good. I slept really well last night, too, and feel pretty good already this morning. I didn’t do much work on the book this weekend, but I did finish marking up the Scotty books, so that’s done. I also had another idea about structure with this book, which is going to be tricky from hereon out to pull off, but I think I can do it, and that’s a very good thing. I also managed to finally finish my blog entry review of Alison Gaylin’s We Are Watching, but you should have know that already if you stop by regularly. I also didn’t read much this weekend, either; it was more about recovery and rest this past weekend than anything else.

I am, by the way, loving the weather. It’s been so beautiful lately, other than the soggy mess that was Friday, which kicked my sinuses into gear, which was partly why I didn’t get anything done. I need to be more careful of my time, though. I’ve gotten so used to spending the weekend recovering from the week and losing track of time (because I feel like I have so much of it every week when Friday rolls around), so should probably start trying to structure the weekends more so I can get things done. I’d forgotten that when you have more free time you need to structure it a little better–but it’s kind of fun just doing what I want when I want to, I must say. I have to get used to this free time thing, and what a horrible problem for me to have, right? There’s nothing wrong with being ambitious, after all–as long as you don’t let your failure to meet goals (from being lazy and having too much free time) affect your self-worth and stop belittling/demeaning myself. I’ve done pretty well for myself as a writer, overall, and considering I did it all mostly on my own–that’s saying something.

I think one of the most important things for me going forward is to cure myself of Imposter Syndrome; I know I’ve talked about how I was raised and how I was taught to be about work–keep your ego out of it2 and let others see the work you do and let them appreciate it. The problem is people never like to let a writer know they enjoyed something–but they do know how to register an outraged opinion. I do the best I can with everything I write, and if I am a better writer than I was twenty-five years ago, good. (I must confess, revisiting Scotty to do the Bible was a pleasant surprise, as the books are actually good.) I also know that there’s nothing I can’t do or achieve if I set my mind to it and plan and stick to it. I did think a lot about writing this weekend–and what are the things I want to write and do over the next few years. It’s so lovely being clear-headed, seriously–you have no idea. The fog is clearing! I feel like GREG again for the first time in nearly a decade. And I’m kind of excited about it, if that makes sense? For example, I saw a news story the other day that gave me not only an insight but a clue to how to fix “Festival of the Redeemer”; that will be fun to rewrite and fix. I also had some thoughts and ideas for Never Kiss a Stranger, Muscles, Chlorine, and the next Scotty–French Quarter Flambeaux, another Mardi Gras novel. I had hoped to revise a short story for a submission call that’s due on the 15th, but I don’t think I’ll have the time to get something ready for it. I do have a story that might fit and needs resolution in a revision, though. There’s still time, of course, but I am not writing as fast as I used to be able to do. Maybe once the muscles get more warmed up? One never knows, does one?

I just saw the Milton forecast, which has me worried and concerned for my central Florida peeps. Take care and be safe, everyone!

And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great day–may be back later!

  1. If you’re a local and don’t know where Hastings is, you’re not alone. I didn’t, either, until she stayed there on a visit sometime in the last few years. It’s one of those little streets in the lower Garden District that only exist for a block or so. It also joins into the intersection at Magazine and Felicity; there are two lanes that veer off to the right to stay on Magazine, and if you veer left you can go down the one block of Hastings. It creates a pie-shaped block that comes to a point at the intersection, and there’s a small park there, and Gris-Gris restaurant is on both Hastings on one side and Magazine on the other. ↩︎
  2. I have a very strong and powerful ego, don’t ever be fooled into thinking I don’t. Knowing how bad it can be is why I go to such an opposite extreme; I don’t like egomaniacal authors who think everything they write is deathless prose that will live for a thousand years–um, you ain’t Homer, dude. ↩︎

I Wouldn’t Want To Live If You Didn’t Love Me

Sunday morning, and all is well in the Lost Apartment.

I woke up early this morning and, remembering, thought it might have been a dream, but no, a quick glance at the Internet told me it really did happen–Alabama did lose to Vanderbilt yesterday, 40-35. Hell, Arkansas came back to upset Tennessee last night while we were were watching ‘salem’s Lot (more on that later). What in the world was going on in college football yesterday? Admittedly, insane days like yesterday (Washington even went to Michigan and won. What the holy hell is going on this year?) are what make college football so fun to watch and experience as a fan; and I think 2024 might just be one of those insane “reset” seasons where everything goes out the window. Vanderbilt beating Alabama1 just two weeks after losing to Georgia State–another Vandy embarrassment–and now the concept of hope has shown up for the hapless Commodores; if they can beat an Alabama team, on any given Saturday, the ‘dores could beat anyone. Absolutely wild. I was watching a different game–I don’t even remember which this morning–when I saw that the score was 13-7 in the second quarter, Vandy leading, and I thought, what the hell and switched over to that game, and both Paul and I watched in stunned bemusement, riveted until the clock ticked to zero and the Vandy fans rushed the field, tore down the goalposts, and carried them three miles to throw them into the Cumberland River. I can only imagine what it was like to be a Vandy fan watching all of this yesterday.2 I do pity the new Alabama coach; he’s got a hell of a week to get through before next weekend’s South Carolina game (LSU comes back from the bye week to play Mississippi next week at home; the Rebs trounced South Carolina yesterday), but still have to play Tennessee, LSU and Oklahoma. They can still make the play-offs if they run the table, but I am beginning to wonder about that. Missouri was also beaten badly by Texas A&M yesterday, so now Texas is the only unbeaten SEC team still standing and there’s no telling who might run the table, who is good and who isn’t, and so forth. It’s kind of exciting, actually. CHAOS.

I did sleep late yesterday, got up and ran all over town and even went out to Metairie for my eye appointment (which has to be rescheduled; it was an on-line booking error), but was thoroughly exhausted when I got home from everything. I immediately started cleaning while the A&M game was on–no need to watch that thrashing, so it was mostly background noise. I did manage to get all the dishes done, and launder the bed linens, and pick up around here. The Lost Apartment looks better this morning, but I also need to finish assembling my desk chair, do some more cleaning up around here (the floors, the floors!) and hopefully do some reading and writing today as well. The Saints play tomorrow night (Taylor Swift has been rumored to be attending; so I imagine all day tomorrow local networks will have someone stationed at the airport to see if her plane lands), and the weather has been lovely since that sopping wet mess of a Friday we had here. I am glad to be up early this morning–clearly I needed to sleep in yesterday, and I was still easily exhausted, so I know I am still not at 100% yet…patience, Gregalicious, patience. You’re older and it takes longer to bounce back than it used to, and you’ve never had a major surgery before; it hasn’t even been a full year yet since the surgery.

I do have one errand to run today, and I should get it done this morning.

So, we decided to watch ‘salem’s Lot instead of watching the Tennessee game (which we should have watched, apparently; I never tire of watching Tennessee lose), and going into it, I knew that most of the King fans amongst my horror writer/reader social media friends didn’t care for it. As I watched the movie–which is a fairly competent vampire horror movie–I immediately saw what the problem with this film adaptation was going to be, and even understood why even the cheesy two-part television version with David Soul failed. I have always thought of ‘salem’s Lot as “Peyton Place with vampires, and that strength of the novel–the townspeople themselves, their relationships with each other and all the long-simmering feuds and gossips and pettiness–was the primary strength of the novel, as is its pacing: it begins as a slow building burn, and the momentum just keeps building. Everyone knows the story is about vampires now; it’s even a bit of an homage, in its own way, to Dracula–there’s even a scene in the book where Matt Burke reminds Ben of Van Helsing–but when I first read the paperback from Signet back in the fall of 1976 in Kansas, I had no idea what it was about. I just knew it was scary, it was about evil in a small town, and the writer was the guy who wrote Carrie, which I had read in one sitting a year earlier. So, I was enjoying how the town is originally shown, a small town that’s like every other small town, that idyllic vision of America that the right keeps forcing on us all–small town America is the real America as this Norman Rockwell painting/Mayberry like life, and it’s anything but that. (Small town America is the real America, but not in the way they mean–small towns are composites of the society as a whole, with percentage wise just as much crime, adultery, incest and passive-aggression as the rest of the country, no matter how much better they believe they are than urban dwellers.) That slow build, as we settle into Jerusalem’s Lot as a town like any other, with likable people and unlikable people whose dirty secrets King allows us to see; in the first half of the book it’s almost like reading Peyton Place; Jerusalems Lot even has the Marsten House as Peyton Place had Samuel’s castle (which was also the name of Allison’s novel in the book). Something dark is going on in the town, and just getting started, which we get glimpses of from time to time–a dog killed and left on the cemetery fence spikes; the disappearance of Ralphie Glick and his brother’s strange sickness and death…but it isn’t until Danny Glick shows up at Mark Petrie’s window do we know that it’s actually vampires, and then the entire book flips and no longer lazily meanders along on its assigned path; it then becomes a thriller that moves with the speed of a locomotive.

This pacing is what most readers like me (and I suspect a lot of others) loved the most about the book; I always loved the town-stuff as much as the vampires, honestly, but that kind of pacing is impossible in a film or a two-part television movie–you can’t have the first half be meandering and slowly moving along the path of the story, folks who have no idea what’s happening in their town and still aren’t entirely sure as the depopulation moves faster and faster, because you risk losing your audience. This was the problem with the David Soul version–the pacing was the same throughout, which isn’t the way the story reads. In this film version they chose to abandon everything from the story that isn’t about vampires, and to just make a standard horror film about vampires. On that level, the movie works. It’s a standard vampire movie that moves very quickly, just as the second half of the book does, but by cutting out all the stuff that made us care about the characters, we aren’t as vested, and when they die, we don’t really feel it much or care–every death in the book was a fucking tragedy, and so the movie is actually kind of soulless. We aren’t given enough character development to care when characters die. I think the only true way to film ‘salem’s Lot successfully, it needs to be a six or eight episode series to be done truly properly. There was hardly anything about the Marsten House in the movie, and that’s a significant change from the book. It’s just there, and we have no idea what kind of research Ben is doing for his novel or why he even came back. The loss of all the supporting characters that really made the book so strong can be felt deeply in the film. It’s just a competent vampire movie, but it isn’t ‘salem’s Lot, but I did like the big scene at the drive-in movie theater.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I want to get a lot done today, and here’s hoping that shall come to pass.

  1. No one ever worries about losing to Vanderbilt; it’s usually seen as a bye for most teams because Vanderbilt has always been terrible in football; they’ve never won the conference in all the years of belonging, haven’t beaten Alabama since 1984, and are always cellar-dwellers in the SEC (one of my favorite things to remind people is that Senator Tatertown the moron lost to Vanderbilt as a football coach; now Kalen DeBoer will also have that distinction. What a wake-up call for Tuscaloosa, and how wild that it happened one week after Alabama beat Georgia, handing them their first regular season loss in 42 games. I mean, good for Vanderbilt, but whoa, what the hell, Bama? ↩︎
  2. Vanderbilt always has more visiting fans in their stadium than their own fans; at one point I was in the kitchen washing dishes and would hear the crowd cheer, so would come take a look–they were Alabama cheers, and they were louder than the smaller contingent of Vandy fans there. ↩︎

She Called Me Baby

Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment, with a trip to Metairie looming for an eye appointment. Yesterday was a bit more hectic than I would have liked, beginning with having to go in to the office on what is usually my remote day (meetings, mostly, and some catch up on work I didn’t get to on Thursday), and then I had errands to run all afternoon. It was a gloomy, off and on raining kind of day, so when I got home I was very happy to be safely back into the Lost Apartment so I could do my chores and do some work. I was very tired last night when I was finished with everything, so just kind of zonked out in my chair. We spent the last few nights getting caught up on our shows (we’re now watching Agatha All Along, Bad Monkey, Only Murders in the Building, Grotesquerie, English Teacher, and American Sports Story), and I am hoping to get to watch the new ‘salem’s Lot movie aat some point this weekend, and I’d like to watch Fall Guy, too.

And I need to write this weekend, big time.

Thursday night, when I was working on the Scotty Bible and was marking pages in Mississippi River Mischief, I realized the murder victim in the book was a corrupt politician who goes by JD; prescience, perhaps? It also reminded me of something from a book I had read a very long time ago–Sarah Schulman’s Stagestruck. The thesis of the book was about the similarities between a very popular Broadway musical (Rent) and her nove, People in Trouble. Sarah had actually attended and reviewed Rent, and while it seemed familiar to her, she just dismissed it as being inspired by the struggling artist scene in lower Manhattan in the 1980s and thought it played very false, given her own experience; it wasn’t until later when a friend told her “you must be so mad about Rent”–and she went back and reread her book. (In all honesty, I went on to read People in Trouble and also watched the film of Rent and I also saw the similarities; she wasn’t inventing anything.) But the point of this particular story is that at the time, as an unpublished aspiring novelist, I found it a bit of a reach that she didn’t remember her own book…but doing the Scotty Bible–and talking with other authors–I realized that not remembering your own book isn’t that much of a stretch, and it does get harder the more book you have; the exponential possibility that you won’t remember your own books grows with each new book you write. that the piece of art basically ripped off her piece of art–and she couldn’t remember much I have been routinely shocked about how much of the Scotty series had slipped from my memory banks as I enter the information from each book into the master document; the huge plot points that are the most memorable things about them…but gone completely. I’d forgotten my villainous politician JD, and I only wrote that book last year. I’d forgotten a lot of the stuff in most of the books. I thought the one I’d really be able to temember was Bourbon Street Blues, and nope. I’d forgotten about the entire sequence in the swamp, the fire, and who the first victim was…and I also was able to remember, while going through it, what I was trying to do with him as a character as more time passed and he gained more experience with criminality and human behavior.

And given all those experiences, it was very important to me to ensure he remained a positive person who prefers to expect the best of people, not the worst, and never become cynical. Cynicism was one of the most powerful traits I wrote into Chanse, and I didn’t want to do that over again.

It was also rainy and dreary all day yesterday, and much as I love rain, it can damper your spirits a little especially when you’re already a bit fatigued. But I am feeling good today (I slept really late this morning) and like I can get a lot accomplished. I am going to make groceries on the way home from my eye appointment. I am going to run an errand in my neighborhood on foot when I get back from that, and I am going to try to get the house cleaned up and do some writing this afternoon while football games play in the living room. I also want to read some more of Gabino’s book and get more into it. Tomorrow morning I will run another errand that I don’t want to do much today–Fresh Market is close so it’s an easy thing to do…maybe I can run it later today and get it over with, but I suspect after getting home from the errands today I won’t want to leave the house so much.

And on that note, I am going to get cleaned up so I can get moving on the errands and the other things to get done around the house. Have a lovely Saturday, best of luck to your favorite team, and I am heading into the spice mines. I might be back later; I am itching to finish my review of Monsters, and the Menendez Brothers in general.