Category: errands

Come On

Yesterday was World AIDS Day, something I didn’t mention on yesterday’s blog because well, it was early in the morning and I literally forgot about it until I got to work yesterday morning (I probably should have prepared a post ahead of time to memorialize and commemorate those we lost; next year–I will put it on my calendar so I won’t forget).

To be fair, I was also all aglow from that terrific review Oline Cogdill gave A Streetcar Named Murder (you can still preorder! Release date is 12/6!). And this morning, I am the guest blogger over at The Wickeds, talking about orange cones and a particularly vexing New Orleans problem, the perennial and pesky potholes.

I slept really well last night, not alighting from the arms of Morpheus until seven thirty this morning. I felt absolutely like a lag-a-bed, a lazy swine, for sleeping so late when my eyes opened to see the red digital numbers glowing in the morning light. I’ve been getting up at five or five thirty all week, so was kind of wondering whether or not I’d sleep late this morning. (I did wake up at three, but went back to sleep almost immediately.) Today I am working from home. I do have some errands I must do at some point, and there’s data to enter and so forth, and oddly enough I feel rested this morning. Usually on Fridays I am a bit worn down from the week, low energy and so forth (which makes the data entry perfect as a job duty for the day), but I don’t feel that way this morning. I don’t feel like I can conquer the world, but I do feel like I can get some things accomplished today. The sink is filled with dirty dishes and of course, there’s always laundry (it never ceases to amaze me how much clothing Paul and I can dirty up all week). I was also very tired when I got home from work last night. Paul didn’t come home until after I groggily climbed the stairs around ten to go to bed, so I spent much of the evening with Scooter purring in my lap while I watched some documentaries on Youtube. James Somerton has a great new one about gay body culture and its origins in Nazi Germany (!), and how the ubermensch Nazi culture of the perfect body was brought home by GI’s after the war. It was fascinating–and it’s been something that’s been on my mind a lot lately (well, over the last few years since the pandemic started) as I’ve looked into gay history and have thought about writing historical gay noirs set throughout the twentieth century (Chlorine, Peplum, Obscenity, Indecency). Watching the Somerton documentary reminded me of Michelangelo Signorile’s Life Outside, which spent some time examining gay body culture, and 2001’s The Adonis Complex, which was a look at the development of male body culture that couldn’t be taken seriously as they erased the gay male experience completely (by not mentioning or acknowledging its existence) which completely invalidated almost everything they wrote about in the book; you cannot talk about male physical perfectionism and only talk about straight men. As Somerton points out in his video–being in good physical condition as a male after your teens used to be a tell about not being straight, as I also mentioned recently on here (when I was talking about using pictures other than of shirtless men).

I don’t always agree with Somerton, but I always enjoy his videos. They make me think, even when I agree with him, and I do enjoy hearing different perspectives.

Progress on the book is being made. It’s been slow going this week, but I am hopeful to make all kinds of progress this weekend. I do have some errands that must be done this weekend, not the least of which is making groceries, and of course I’ll have to watch the SEC Championship game since LSU is playing Georgia, but the loss last week took most of the urgency out of this game, so I can just watch and not mind how it turns out. As I said the other day, finishing the regular season at 8-3 with a trip to the conference championship was something I couldn’t have imagined in August or September–so it’s wonderful to see LSU relevant again after the tragedies that were the last two seasons. Who knows what the future may hold for the Tigers? But it’s nice to be competitive again with the big boys. Like I said, last summer I would have never believed LSU would beat Auburn, Florida, and Alabama this season, yet here we are. GEAUX TIGERS!

I need to get my act together today. It’s been nice (seriously) getting up this week when I wake up; I’ve loved having that extra hour (or half hour, depending on which day it was) to get things done before heading for work. And while I was tired in the evenings when I got home, realistically I was able to get some things done in the evening as well. I need to check my to-do list and clean some, as already mentioned; I also have errands to do and I want to get some work on the book done as well as some more Blatant Self-Promotion posts. The book comes out on Tuesday officially, which is terribly exciting.

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

Goodbye Baby

Tuesday morning and all is quiet at this ungodly hour.

I’m up earlier than usual because I made the decision, whilst I was out of town, that the smart thing to do was get up when I actually wake up, rather than just continuing to lie in the bed awake. It’s comfortable, to be sure, and getting out from under my pile of blankets is never an easy thing to do….but it’s also wasteful of time and staying in bed doesn’t make getting up with the alarm any easier, nor does it make me less tired later in the day. All in all, it’s not going to kill me to get up earlier, so today is my first day trying it (not really, I woke up an hour earlier than necessary yesterday and just went ahead and got up then, so this is my second day of trying this to see how it all works for me). I had errands to run after work last night and I had to write a promotional piece for another blog for A Streetcar Named Murder–there really is no worse timing than having a book coming out as you are trying to meet the deadline on another.

It’s also weird because at the same time I have to try to remember things from Streetcar, which was finished months ago, and of course I’ve moved on to something new that I need to focus on. Heavy sigh. But I think the post I wrote last night is fun and interesting, and hopefully will spark some interest in the book. I’ve also been asked to sign at an event here in New Orleans in January–I want to say ALA, but I could be wrong–and I’ve also agreed to return to the dual Murder event weekend in Alabama yet again. I think this is the fourth time I’ve been invited? I love Margaret and Tammy, and I always have a lovely time at the event.

WE started watching that Hulu series about Chippendales last night, Welcome to Chippendales, starring Kumail Nanjiani as Steve Batterjee. I’ve watched a couple of documentaries about Chippendales and the resultant murder of one of the partners, but I’d forgotten about Dorothy Stratten’s connection to the club before she was murdered (someone really needs to do another series or movie about her life and death; Star 80 was good but…). It’s entertaining enough, and Chippendales also has something to do with the societal change in the sexualization and objectification of the male body that began in the 1970’s (along with the explosion of gay porn and Playgirl, followed by Calvin Klein ads in the 1980s), as well as the beauty standard for men. I recently (it may have been longer ago than what counts as recent, but time has lost all meaning to me now) commented to one of my younger gay male co-workers that “you used to be able to tell if someone was gay or not by how well built they were; if they clearly spent time on their bodies at the gym and ate right to improve the way they looked, they were gay because straight men didn’t give a shit.” Tribal tattoos also used to be a tell that a hot guy was gay. NOT ANYMORE. And the guys today–whatever their sexual orientation–have even more amazing bodies than we used to have back in the day; the definition and the focus on ab development and the absence of any body fat is far more pronounced amongst hot young men these days than it used to be. And they are everywhere. My Instagram and Twitter feeds are often filled with beautiful shots of incredibly handsome young men with unbelievable bodies; some of which I’ve sometimes shared here on the blog. I’ve also been seriously considering going to something else with the blog images, to be honest–I know some people would miss the sexy men images, but it also might be keeping other people away at the same time. I don’t know. But I started using pictures of hot men years ago because when the blog cross-posted to social media it would always show up as with a pale blue square box with a pencil in it, which I hated. When I talked about books, the book cover would come over, so I decided to use images of very hot men that essentially pop up somewhere on the Internet throughout the course of the day and it kind of became an ingrained habit, a default if you will, perhaps even a brand–I hate thinking of myself or anything I do as a writer as a ‘brand,’ and yes, I do recognize that my writing is a product for sale, but it’s not a pack of T-shirts or underwear or a pair of pants hanging on a sales rack. So, do I really want my ‘brand’ for my blog to be sexy shirtless men?

Probably a little late to worry about that now.

The Chippendales calendar–how many years did I buy that? I can remember being deathly afraid to take it to the cash register at the bookstore…but now that I am thinking about it, I don’t remember which bookstores I used to patronize in Fresno. Perhaps a Barnes and Noble at the mall? A Waldenbooks, maybe? But yes, I used to feel my face burning with embarrassment as I tried to nonchalantly buy a Chippendales calendar, all the while thinking the cashier knows I am gay because why else would I be buying this calendar? Now I laugh at the memory of the shame I used to feel. The cashier couldn’t have given two shits about what I was buying, and even if they did, who cares? I had always been attracted more to athletes than any other type of male; I always had a thing for muscles and worked out bodies. Why, I don’t know; whether I was simply wired that way for physical attraction, or if it’s because the first naked bodies of men that I saw were those of athletes in school. Junior high was the first time I ever had to change into gym clothes, shower and be around other naked boys, and I was never comfortable doing so. The locker room before and after gym in junior high was a nightmare, but once I was in high school and on sports teams…the boys I was attracted to were usually athletes. That never really changed over the years as I got older and grew more comfortable with my sexuality–what changed were the bodies. Whereas only athletes and dancers, gay men, and narcissistic straight men used to regularly go to the gym and work out their bodies to build muscle, gradually it became a thing for all men across the board, regardless of orientation. On the rare occasions when I go to the gym now, I see incredibly well-built and well-muscled young men all the time–and while thirty years ago I would have assumed they were gay or bisexual, now I can’t assume anything. I just marvel at the shift in societal attitudes towards men no longer in school who continue to exercise and work out–whether to be healthier or for something to show off and attract women, who knows?

But aesthetically, I appreciate them.

So, the quandary remains. Do I try to rebrand the blog by using other types of pictures, and if so, what kind should I start using? Would people miss the hot guys? Would more people be drawn to the blog rather than closing the browser window as soon as the hot guy loads?

Or do I just not worry about it–as I have never worried about people coming here to read the entries–and keep on as I have been? Decisions, decisions.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I will talk to you again tomorrow.

Bleed to Love Her

Monday morning and all is well in the Lost Apartment as I swill coffee and brace myself for the day (and week) ahead.

I returned from Kentucky on Friday. Both the voyage up and back–despite their great length and the brittle stiffness of my aging body–didn’t seem quite so bad or to take as long as they usually do. I did make great time in both directions, while listening to two audiobooks (Ruth Ware’s The Woman in Cabin 10 on the way up, Carol Goodman’s The Disinvited Guest on the way back; both are superb and highly recommended) but of course once I got home on Friday night I was quite exhausted. I spent Saturday trying to get caught up on the apartment itself while football games played in the background (more on that later). I did a lot of laundry, a lot of dishes, ran errands and made groceries, before finally settling in to watch the LSU/Texas A&M game, which was disappointing (more on that later). Yesterday I got up early (I’ve been getting up early a lot lately) and chose to stay off-line for the most part. I did clean out the junk out of my inbox, wrote up the books I read while on my trip for blog entries, and wrote another blatant self-promotion post for A Streetcar Named Murder while also trying to get a handle on everything I need to get done for this coming week. I felt very well-rested yesterday at long last. I didn’t have as much trouble sleeping while I was away as I usually do, which was cool–I found another sleep-aid that seems to be working very nicely–but Friday night I didn’t sleep as well as I thought I would, given how worn out I was from the drive. Saturday night’s sleep, however, was quite marvelous.

Ah, the Insomnia Chronicles. How I long for the day when my sleep isn’t of concern (or at least as not as much interest) to me.

The weather was also kind of terrible when I got back–raining and humid, but cool; the kind where you aren’t sure if you need to turn on the heat or the air, and yesterday there were tornadoes and high winds in the river and bayou parishes outside of New Orleans. Yesterday however was beautiful; sunny with blue skies with the low in the mid-sixties and the high in the mid-seventies. Not bad for Christmas season, is it? It’s also hard to wrap my mind around the idea that it’s Christmas already, to be honest. I got a great Kindle deal on a collection of Christmas crime short stories, which I am really looking forward to digging into–perhaps a story a day for the season? The Christmas Murder Mystery project? (You know I love me some projects to work on.) It’s also weird that it’s the holiday season again, which means Carnival is also right around the block. YIKES. This also means I need to start planning around the parade schedule and when I need to leave work and so forth. Ugh, much as I love Carnival, it’s always stressful and exhausting, if fun and delightful.

It was an interesting weekend of college football. The Mississippi-Mississippi State game on Thanksgiving was a lot of fun, right up to its crazy end; South Carolina somehow managed to beat Clemson; and of course, Michigan blew out Ohio State in Columbus. This kind of set the stage for the LSU game on Saturday night–I had a very queasy feeling about the game, partly because it seemed as though everyone was looking ahead to next week’s SEC title game with Georgia and the possibility of a play-off berth for the Tigers; but Texas A&M always plays LSU hard, no matter how bad their record is, and for some reason they’ve decided LSU is their big rivalry in the conference. The game looked awful; LSU was playing very sloppy on both sides of the ball and my heart and spirit continued to flag with each missed tackle and each missed opportunity. It was disappointing, to be sure, but on the other hand, I am thrilled to death with how the season went. No one gave LSU a shot at having a winning record, let alone beating Alabama and winning the West division, so I am choosing to be grateful for a wonderful winning season after two seasons of mediocrity and looking forward to an even better, more glittering future for the Tigers. I have faith in Coach Kelly, I have faith in what he is building there, and who knows? In a year or two we may win it all again. GEAUX TIGERS!

In other blatant self-promotional news, I also appeared recently on Alexia Gordon’s The Cozy Corner, which was a lot of fun, and I also appeared on Dru’s Book Musing, and how lovely that she gave me such a wonderful view. Thanks to both Dru and Alexia, both being lovely people who have gone out of their way to be kind to me and A Streetcar Named Murder, for which I will always be eternally grateful. It’s hard to believe the book is going to be published soon! And don’t worry, there will be plenty more blatant self-promotion to come.

PLENTY.

I also spent some good time with the book yesterday and it’s not nearly as bad as I thought it might be, as I feared it would be. Yes, the first half needs some work, but not nearly as much as I had thought and I also went through and made a character list as well as outlined the first half. Tomorrow I am going to work on the edits and finishing the outline for the rest of the book; and I am also going to write in and ask for more time. I never finish on time, do I? But the book is good, there’s lots of material for the second half, and I am kind of excited about getting this one completely under control at long last. Huzzah!

We also binged 1899 yesterday; it’s from the same people who did the superlative German series Dark, and had the added bonus of having one of our favorite actors from Elité, Miguel Bernardeau, in the cast as well. It’s delightfully creepy and strange, and you never have a very good sense of what is going on (like Dark), so of course we were glued to the set the entire time. It’s quite good, actually; I’m not sure how I feel yet about the final episode other than curiosity about how that is going to lead into a second season–because the finale raised more questions than it answered (like a good finale), but I’ll be happy to continue watching.

I feel rested this morning, though, which is lovely. I am sure by the middle of the week I’ll be tired and short of temper again, but for now, for this morning, I am going to just enjoy myself feeling rested and relaxed in the meantime. I have, as always, an insane amount of work to get done this week, but right now I am going to enjoy the peace and quiet of this morning before I have to start getting ready to leave for work; I even got up earlier than I usually do on Mondays.

And on that note, I am heading headfirst into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday morning, Constant Reader, and I’ll chat at you again tomorrow morning.

Destiny Rules

Sunday, Sunday. It feels cold again outside this morning–you can tell, even inside; the downstairs floor is always the giveaway–but I slept really well last night and feel very rested this morning. I have so much to get done today it’s almost daunting, but I think with the good night’s sleep and feeling rested I should be able to plow through everything I need to do today before leaving tomorrow. And there is a lot. I did make great progress yesterday and did get a lot done, not enough, but progress was made. I avoided the television for the most part–it was one, so I could sit in the living room and see what was going on, but I managed to never allow myself to settle in and get sucked into the games. It was a crazy college football day in which the top four all barely managed to win their games, and then of course Number 5 Tennessee got blown out of the stadium by South Carolina last night. Paul went to the office yesterday and when I knocked off for the day I started watching that game because the LSU game started later, and wow, who saw that coming? Or Arkansas blowing out Mississippi? LSU played well despite poor weather conditions and managed to beat UAB 41-10 for their ninth win of the season, with Texas A&M all that is left in the regular season. LSU could have a rare ten win regular season for the first time since 2019, which nobody saw coming, with an extremely outside shot at the play-offs–which would require beating Georgia for the SEC title, and I don’t think that’s going to happen. But what a marvelous turnaround season for my Tigers. Who knew?

I have groceries to pick up, writing to do, need to pack, need to air up the car tires, and have all kinds of things on the list to do today. Yikes. I cannot let Paul distract me or suck me into a Saints game or anything either before six pm this evening; I have to get everything done in that time frame because that’s when I am calling it a day and taking the rest of the evening off. I don’t want to have to get up super-early tomorrow, but the good news is I don’t think I need to get up at six unless I do so organically, which is, of course, entirely possible. I have to make sure the books I am listening to in the car are downloaded and ready to go when I pull away from the curb tomorrow morning, and I need to pay a bill or two today as well.

I also managed to get better organized yesterday–still not completely there, or as organized as I should be, going forward–but it helped to have the book research and my notes and everything all pulled together into one place for review. I am most likely going to close my browser when I finish posting this for the duration of the day; although I am going to want to spend some time later composing emails to send tomorrow morning before I leave for the trip. It’s never ending being a Gregalicious, I have to say. But this was a good weekend; I feel like I’m getting my head back together and back into the game, and it feels functional again, which is saying something. Maybe it’s just because I feel rested this morning, I don’t know and can’t really say for sure, but it is very nice to wake up and feel rested and relaxed and have my mind working completely.

I hate feeling tired more than anything, really.

But my coffee tastes marvelous this morning and I feel terrific. There’s still some serious cleaning to do as well–isn’t there always? There’s a load of dishes needing to be put away and another load ready to go inside of the dishwasher, too–the endless cycle of use and clean, use and clean, ad nauseum ad infinitum. Will this last and will I get everything off my to-do list before six this evening? It remains to be seen, but I do know that right now I feel great and hope this will last through the day. We’ll see how it all goes, but I am optimistic right now and that’s always a plus, really.

And on that note, I am going to get another cup of coffee and head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll chat with you again tomorrow.

Running Through The Garden

Friday morning work-at-home blog!

I have data to enter and things to do today, Constant Reader. I’m leaving on Monday for Kentucky and will be gone for a week, so I have to seriously buckle down over the course of this weekend and get things done. It was cold here last night–in the thirties–and this morning the downstairs floor is cold beneath my feet, and the chilliest spot in the entire Lost Apartment is here at my desk. Heavy sigh. But that’s okay, I can deal with it. I have a load of laundry in the dryer, need to empty the dishwasher and refill it again–and of course the entire place from top to bottom is a complete disaster area. Hopefully I’ll be able to get the house under control as well as get all my work finished that I need to get finished not only today but over the entire weekend. Yesterday I was, not surprisingly, very tired when I got home from work. I did get some laundry folded and another load going, and yes, I loaded the dishwasher last night and stumbled around a bit in my tired state, but eventually Paul came home and we were able to watch the season finale of Half-Bad or The Bastard Son and the Devil Himself or whatever the hell you call it, which felt kind of anticlimactic, to be honest. I enjoyed the show, love the concept and the actors are very appealing–I am especially fond of Gabriel, the pansexual witch, to be honest–and we also watched a new episode of American Horror Story: NYC, which was kind of odd and weird, with a kind A Christmas Carol feel to it. I don’t know, it just seemed more like filler than anything else to me, and of course the AIDS allegory isn’t exactly subtle (why not just make it AIDS? The plague in the 1980s wasn’t horrible enough for a season of American Horror Story? Although AIDS in the first two decades would have been better suited for a season of American Crime Story….) but it is unsettling.

I’ve been doing, if you’ve been paying attention, the occasional Blatant Self-Promotional (BSP) entries for A Streetcar Named Murder, which has been kind of fun. I’m not sure what the next one will be–I’ve done the character, the store, and the neighborhood she lives in; I suppose the supporting cast should be next. I’ll figure it out at some point, I am sure; it’s not like the book drops until December 6th or anything–although I’ve been seeing pictures of already delivered copies on social media, which doesn’t make sense, but I’ve learned to not question things like that. It is what it is, and if people are already getting copies several weeks of release date, who am I to wonder the reasons why? Publishing is one of those businesses you never can completely figure out…because once you think you have a handle on something, it changes almost immediately.

I’m also looking forward to getting a handle on the current Scotty. I’ve been too tired from work this week to get as much done as I needed to get done, so this weekend is going to result in a big push. I have of course all the data to enter for my day job today, and I need to run some errands once I am finished for the day, but I remain hopeful that my energy won’t flag and I’ll be able to dive headfirst into the book this weekend without either having to force myself or for it to be like pulling teeth. As I have mentioned, the LSU game isn’t until the evening and it’s not really a big one; non-conference opponent, and of course I want them to win, but it’s Alabama-Birmingham (although I suppose completing the trifecta of beating Auburn, Alabama and UAB would make LSU state champions of Alabama again) and so there’s not the same urgency as there will be when we play Texas A&M the Saturday after Thanksgiving. What a wild, crazy and all-over-the-place college football season this has been…certainly nothing like I expected.

But I think the cold helped me sleep better last night than I have all week. I didn’t wake up super-early either; wide awake at seven, which is something I absolutely can handle, and feel very rested this morning. I did do one of those “oh you’re getting so old now” things this week–in which I turned my torso to do something here in the kitchen but did it at precisely the right angle to aggravate or irritate something, so now I am vaguely aware of some stiff soreness in my upper body. I can’t describe where exactly it’s located or how it feels, but it’s kind of like how when you have a respiratory thing going on and when you try to take a deep breath it feels tight? It’s kind of like that but not in my lungs, if that makes any sense. I’ll probably try to use the heating pad and the massage roller to work whatever the hell it is out before I leave on Monday morning.

I suppose the clock is ticking on Twitter, but I can’t really muster up enough energy to care much one way or the other. I use it, of course–I remember setting up the account because co-workers suggested that I should have one–and I go there periodically, primarily to waste time when I’m in line at the grocery store or the pharmacy or wherever; or when I am sitting in my easy chair at night with a purring cat in my lap while I am waiting for Paul to come home and I am watching Youtube videos on autoplay. Last night it kind of felt like high school graduation, as people were saying goodbye to everyone and it all had a touch of “signing the yearbook my senior year” to it all. I know a lot of people love Twitter, and I certainly had a lot of fun there over the years–primarily interacting with my friends and readers, mostly–but it’s also a horrific hell-scape with trolls lurking everywhere and nastiness for the sake of nastiness popping up every now and then. I find myself writing horrible responses to horrible people all the time before deleting them, and in some instances it’s too late–yes, you can delete tweets, of course, but that also seems kind of cowardly to me and besides, the Internet is indeed forever; I screen cap bad takes (aka “receipts”) all the time to save them just in case…and as I typed that even now I was thinking just in case? For what? In case I need to remind someone I don’t know of a bad take they had a few years ago? I have little to no desire to learn how to use a new social media service, so I am not migrating to another platform or any such nonsense; perhaps I will if and when the Twitter universe comes to a crashing halt. But while I’ll miss the interactions with my friends–and the opportunity to post that picture of me with the shocked look on my face everyone loves so much–I think I’ll somehow manage to survive.

And on that note, the dryer just stopped so I need to fold some laundry. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I will talk to you tomorrow.

Smile at You

Thursday and my last day in the office until after Thanksgiving, which is rather something if you think about it, you know? It’s cold again this morning–you can tell, even with the heat on and the Lost Apartment itself feeling a little, shall we say, temperate? I’m still not used to having an HVAC system that works effectively and keeps the apartment warm no matter what it’s like outside, you know?

Yesterday was yet another exhausting day at the office. I’d not slept as well as I would have liked Tuesday night, so yes, yesterday was tired and worn down by the end of the day. I had to stop and make groceries on the way home–not much, just a quick in-and-out–and today I am hoping I won’t be too tired when I get home from work to do some chores and some more work on the book. BY the time I got home yesterday I was very tired. Paul didn’t get home until later so we didn’t get to watch any of our shows; instead I spent the evening watching Youtube videos on French history. I think I slept well last night–I only woke up a couple of times during the night–and I feel sort of rested right now as I sip my coffee; we’ll see how long it holds today, shall we?

But for now, I feel good and my coffee is hitting the spot and I did succeed in making a to-do list yesterday, which was a step in the right direction towards getting caught up–or better organized, one of the two. I had forgotten to make my hotel reservation for Bouchercon in San Diego, so I got that taken care of yesterday, and now just have the flights left to get taken care of once Southwest allows us to start booking in late August, probably next month sometime. I am leaving for Kentucky on Monday morning, but I have The Uninvited Guest by Carol Goodman to listen to on the way up and The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware to listen to on the way home. (I listed to Ware’s The Death of Mrs. Westaway on the way up last time, and absolutely loved it.)

I’ve also been doing blog entries attempting to promote the book–which has been fun so far, but am not sure really how effective it actually will be in the long run, but I am enjoying myself, which is perhaps the most important thing, right?–and I also am doing a piece for CrimeReads that is due this weekend–but as I mentioned previously this week, I can pretty much ignore college football for the most part most of Saturday, as LSU’s game isn’t until seven pm (I cannot get over the LSU turnaround this season; I keep thinking I’m going to wake up from this fever dream) so as long as I am not disgustingly and horribly lazy, I should not only be able to get that written but make some serious progress with the book as well. Please, God–make it so.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines on this chilly Thursday morning in New Orleans. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.

Steal Your Heart Away

Wednesday and halfway through the week. It’s cold again this morning–despite the HVAC working beautifully, I can tell it’s cold outside because the downstairs floor is cold–but that’s fine, I can deal with it. As long as I have a hat to cover my head and keep my scalp warm, I’ll be fine. I also don’t have to be out in it for very long, either, which is always an added plus.

I was very tired yesterday when I got home. We were busier than usual yesterday, and the day didn’t go smoothly–or at least didn’t without needing other work in order for it to run smoothly. I also didn’t sleep great last night, either–a toss and turn and wake up fairly regularly throughout the night, which definitely isn’t going to be a great thing for me today. Ah, well, I shall endure and try to get things done. I did manage to get some chores done yesterday once I got home, but that pretty much did me in for the evening and I collapsed into my chair to watch some documentaries on Youtube about queer representation in movies and television shows (I really enjoy James Somerton, check his videos out)–yesterday I was rather enjoying his views on the classic Mommie Dearest when Paul got home, and we watched another two episodes of Half Bad–I am still not sure if that’s the series title or if its The Bastard Son and the Devil Himself, which is aggravating; it shouldn’t be that hard to figure out the name of a show–which is terrific; we’ll be finishing the first season tonight. I imagine this season finale will be pretty intense.

I was right–it’s in the forties this morning. Yikes.

I also really need to take the time today to make a very thorough and engaging to-do list, methinks. I have lots of things to get done before I leave for Kentucky on Monday and I also have to recognize that I will probably get nothing done while I am there; which is usually the case. I generally do have the chance to get some reading done, but writing? Yeah, that’s pretty much a lost cause once I get there. Heavy sigh. The drive is going to be exhausting, too. The older I get the more I miss the Flying Couch, that big old luxury car I used to have that looked like a rolling wreck but had an amazing engine and whose shock absorbers made it feel like I was riding on a sofa. That was the only vehicle I’ve ever owned that didn’t wear me out on long drives–granted, I was much younger then too.

And I probably won’t be writing any blog entries while I am gone, either. I know you’ll miss me, Constant Reader, which is why I am giving you so much notice–so you can prepare for the loss. It too, shall pass; I’ll be driving back to New Orleans on Friday.

I am really pleased with how the book is coming along. The problem of course is I don’t have the time to really get deep into it. I think I can do a lot of work on it this Saturday and Sunday because LSU is playing UAB as a night game Saturday, so my whole day is free, and there really aren’t any college games of much interest to me this weekend, other than possibly Georgia-Kentucky or Arkansas-Mississippi, but I don’t know that I care all that much to ensconce myself into my easy chair with everything I need within reach and stay there, sucked into the games all day. And if I can get a strong push done on it this weekend, I can perhaps spend some time in Kentucky planning the rest of the book and editing what is already done. Why, yes, that does indeed sound like a plan.

And on that note, I am venturing into the spice mines and out into the cold to get there. Stay warm, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow.

Say You Will

And just like that, it’s Tuesday morning and another exciting day back in the clinic. Huzzah!

Yesterday was a good day. I mentioned it was cold yesterday morning? I turned the heat on to no avail on Sunday evening–it ran for a little while and then went off–so I played with the thermostat with no success yesterday morning and just broke out my old space heater. When I got home from work and running errands yesterday, you can imagine my delight and surprise to walk into a temperate apartment with heat coming from the vents. Paul said it was on when he got home from the gym yesterday afternoon, and we both just shrugged and decided to enjoy the fact that it felt temperate in the apartment rather than questioning whatever happened with the HVAC system. And you know, it’s nice. Our heat never really worked all those years, so we always just layered and used space heaters and blankets and so forth, but this is really lovely. It’s nice to sit at my desk on what I can tell is a cold morning without a hat and gloves and a space heater.

And yesterday was a good day. After the errands I got home, did some laundry and dishes, and then opened up my word files and started revising and revamping and reworking the book. It really is something to reread things you’ve written that makes you question your career choices, you know? I knew it was some seriously bad writing, but I didn’t know it was that bad, LOL. But yes, I knew it was bad when I was writing it but at the same time, yesterday I just started revising and reworking and rewording and ooh, look at this two-page long info dump that’s definitely going to need some fixing. It feels good to strip things down to the bones and rebuild them, and I actually felt like I accomplished something yesterday, which was great. It also picked up my mood–clearly I am in a much better mood this morning than I was before–as writing always does. I hope to get some more shredding and rebuilding done today. And I do think once I get this part of the book reworked and redone, writing the rest of it will be that much easier.

We also watched a few more episodes of The Bastard Son and The Devil Himself–which actually has a different main title, Half Bad, which I didn’t realize until last night; and frankly, calling it Half Bad is much easier. The show is very entertaining, I love the male lead (whose name I should look up, so I did: Jay Lycurgo is his name) and the show is very cleverly plotted. I may have to go back and check out the book it’s based on, even if it is (I checked) written in the second person, which I’ve always found irritating.

We had an amazing thunderstorm last night while I was in my chair revising and waiting for Paul to finish work and come downstairs to watch Half Bad. I am never really entirely sure it if’s thunder or someone moving the heavy iron chairs on the deck upstairs (it really has to be pouring incredibly hard for me to hear the rain over the television), and Paul confirmed, when he came down, that it was a thunderstorm. Shortly after that there was a clap of thunder that sounded like it was right outside the apartment–and lasted for a rather long time. Maybe the storm helped me sleep really well last night? I don’t know what caused it, but I actually slept decently last night. I also think the relaxation over the book–the book stress always builds up to a pressure point inside my head, which also induces paralysis (this book is so bad there’s no saving it so why bother?) but getting deep into the weeds with it yesterday clearly relieved a lot of that pressure and so now the stress has been released (kind of like the steam when you’re making an espresso–great analogy, Greg! Maybe you should try writing?) and am hopeful it will be mostly smooth sailing from here on out. It’s a bit warmer outside today than it was yesterday, too, per the weather app, which probably also has something to do with the rain from last night.

So, I am hoping for a productive morning. I am going to make a cappuccino to take with me and head into the office. Hopefully, I’ll make it through the day with enough energy to come home and finish the chores as well as dive into the book some more. Wish me luck, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.

Peacekeeper

It is a cold Monday morning in the Lost Apartment and our heater is out again–every year it seems, the moment it gets cold it goes on the fritz the very first time we try to use it, so out came the space heater and I may need a second, just in case–but that’s fine. I sleep best when it’s cold, so last night’s sleep was quite nice. I also woke up at five again this morning, yay, but stayed in bed for another few hours. I probably should have just gone ahead and gotten up–it’s not like I don’t have things to do, you know–but again, cold and the pile of blankets was marvelously warm and comfortable. And now, sitting here at my desk in my sweats with a ski cap on and the space heater blowing warm air on me…I don’t even want to get up out of this warm space.

Sigh.

Paul and I had lunch with friends from out of town yesterday at Lula, the lovely restaurant on St. Charles just a couple of blocks from our house. I didn’t wear a jacket, although it was chilly, but it was nice. I always enjoy these sorts of things, but it’s always hard to get a Greg at rest into motion, you know? I’m not entirely sure why that is, but it just is, and I’ve learned to live with it. I have errands to run tonight when I get off work–prescriptions, mail, groceries–which will be wonderful in the cold, of course; it’s forty-five outside right now with a high predicted to be sixty-five; hardly the dead of winter everyone else is used to, but it is a bit on the extreme side for us here in New Orleans. I got some excellent work done on the book this weekend, which is always lovely when you shut off contact from the outside world for a few days to close off distractions so you can focus. I am still behind, of course, but I am hopeful I can get back on track by the end of this coming weekend.

We finished watching Young Royals last night–it doesn’t have very long seasons, six episodes or so–and I enjoyed it. (Although, as I pointed out several times, being a royal is a symbolic thing and not really necessary for Sweden anymore; it’s funny how these countries hang on to their pasts and traditions, no matter how archaic they may be; scratch a Brit and find a royalist) We also started watching a new supernatural show called The Bastard Son and The Devil Himself, which is actually quite good and we found ourselves enjoying it tremendously. The young male lead is also in Titans, playing a character whose name I cannot recall but I do remember from the comics as being the third Robin. It’s interesting and very well done and the fantasy/supernatural world it builds–two warring clans of witches–is also done pretty well.

It’s also hard to think that at this time next Monday I’ll be on the road, driving to Kentucky and listening to Carol Goodman. I already downloaded a book to my phone, but I don’t remember which one–but it doesn’t matter because they are always excellent. I’ve yet to read a Goodman that wasn’t, frankly, and I think she is definitely one of our finest suspense novelists of this time. Like Mary Stewart, her books are very literate and incredibly smart; they are also incredibly good reads with strongly developed characters and interesting, engaging plots that you can’t step away from–which is truly the mark of a terrific writer. I may listen to another on the way back, too. I am so glad I discovered audio books…it really makes a difference on long drives. Sure, my mind wanders from time to time, but I am always pulled back into the narrative quite easily.

I do feel a little disappointed with myself for not getting more done over the weekend. I really do need to do a deep clean before i leave so I don’t come home to a dirty apartment but the question is, when will I have the time to do it? I I am exhausted every day when I get home from work–but that’s the thing, isn’t it? I need to resist the urge–and the cat howling–to just sit down for a minute to relax because inevitably I wind up stuck there, feeling exhausted and depleted, and nothing gets done. This, of course, leads to self-flagellation as well: why did you blow off the entire evening? Imagine how much MORE relaxed you’d feel if you’d done the dishes or gotten the laundry sorted or picked up some of this mess…

I am a harsh taskmaster for myself, apparently.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I will talk to you later.

Murrow Turning Over In His Grave

Pay-the-Bills Day and it’s also post-election Wednesday. Do I dare look? Do I want to know if my fellow Americans decided, once again, that my rights aren’t as important as their wallets? I chose not to look last night as I couldn’t bear it. Was there ever a time when elections didn’t fill me with existential dread? I voted, of course–I have voted in every election since I was old enough to register, in 1980–but will also admit that sometimes I miss the smaller, less-publicized elections, and those are really just as important as the big national ones. I used to lecture people about not voting, until I realized I was a hypocrite who skipped minor local elections. Yes, Greg, voting for the School Board is important even if you don’t have children.

Sheesh.

I may not have children, but my tax dollars help pay for them to be educated, so I should care about the kind of education my tax dollars are providing, right?

I was tired yesterday. I ran out of steam in the afternoon, as always, and then drove home and walked to my polling place. I worked on the book a little–I was tired, like I said–and then collapsed into my easy chair to wait for Paul to come home. I woke up at five again this morning–I suspect it’s going to take me awhile to get used to the time change and getting to actually sleep through until the alarm at six–but adjustments are, while sometimes difficult, a part of life and my body’s inability to adapt as quickly as it used to is just yet another sign of my advancing age. I am feeling better about the book, to be honest–I think the revisions of this first half, while going a lot slower than I would ordinarily prefer, are coalescing and shaping the book into something quite enjoyable. I guess it’s normal for me to have self-doubt about everything while I am in the midst of a book and wondering why I continue to torture myself the way I do. I kind of do this during every book, don’t I? I wonder if I will ever get to the point where I don’t have crippling self-doubt and loathing of my own work while it’s in progress? No, not likely.

Know thyself.

Paul and I have been watching the new season of Big Mouth, the animated Netflix series about kids going through puberty, and it’s so good to laugh like that. We’ve loved the show and its irreverent and hilarious approach to something everyone can relate to–raging hormones, the transition from childhood to adulthood–and the first episode we watched last night, “Vagina Shame,” was absolutely scream-laugh funny, and accurate. I’ll probably write more in-depth about this show at some point, but it is really funny. If you don’t offend easily, you might want to check it out.

It’s also Pay-the-Bills day, and I have to say, it’s so lovely to actually have gotten a life-changing raise. I’m not wealthy now by any means, but I also no longer have to worry about paying the bills and buying groceries. It doesn’t mean carte blanche to spend money like it’s going out of style or anything, but it is nice to not have to think about “well, if I pay this much on that credit card I can then use it to buy groceries.” Ugh. One of my goals for this year is to pay down as much of this debt as I can (I know, I know, that’s been a goal for quite some time, but I am making progress. It’s just slower going than I would prefer, quite frankly).

And here’s hoping that my energy and my mood lasts through the entire day!

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Catch you tomorrow, Constant Reader!