Category: errands

Only Over You

I do love researching Louisiana, even if and when it leads me down a rabbit hole as it always does. I’ve been trying–and it really isn’t necessary–to find out of you can actually leave the New Orleans metropolitan area without crossing a bridge; I-10 east and west require bridges (west is the wetlands/swamp alongside Lake Pontchartrain, going east you cross the lake) and of course the Causeway to the North Shore is also a bridge across the lake. Obviously you need a bridge to cross the river (there are two, the Crescent City Connection and the Huey P. Long Bridge), which leaves the old River Road, which for years was the only way into or out of New Orleans without crossing a bridge as it follows the levees up the river to Baton Rouge. I’ve never actually taken the River Road so I can’t swear that there are no bridges on its path alongside the river going north; I’ve been trying to get the answer by using Google Maps and Earth rather than taking the time to drive all the way out there and see for myself. The trick is, of course, the Bonne Carré Spillway; according to the maps the road is inside the spillway, so if the spillway is opened I believe New Orleans would have no dry land exits in any direction. I want to include this in my book, but…I also don’t want to have to take the drive to find out for sure, either.

And if I get it wrong, of course I’ll hear about it.

I am back into the office on a Monday for the first time in a very long time; I feel good this morning. I woke up long before the alarm and stayed in bed until the alarm went off, but I do feel remarkably rested all the same. We’ll see how this shift in work days feels later in the week, won’t we? But so far it feels good.

The Saints did win yesterday; for some reason I thought the game was last night instead of in the afternoon so I was reading in my chair when Paul came downstairs and mentioned that the game was on and it seemed like an exciting one–so I tuned in just in time to see the closing two minutes of the Saints’ second win on the season. I’m glad, though, I didn’t watch–from all reports it sounded like the kind of exciting and thrilling game that is inevitably an emotional rollercoaster, and after the disastrous LSU game on Saturday I don’t think I could have handled a close, exciting Saints game on top of it anyway, so it was just as well. I did get some writing done yesterday–nowhere near as much as was necessary and needed, so yay, still behind! Woo-hoo!–and then we watched our shows last evening. I enjoyed the new episodes of The Serpent Queen (now deviating from the actual historical story), House of the Dragon, Interview with the Vampire, and an episode of The Midnight Club (which, interestingly enough, is turning the stories the terminally ill teens tell each other into adaptations of other Christopher Pike stories, which is really clever) before retiring to bed relatively early last evening.

Ugh, just looking at my inbox is giving me the vapors. Hopefully I’ll make some good progress on that as well as my to-do list; which I made last week and nothing is crossed off of it, which doesn’t bode well for me or anyone or anything for that matter. But here’s hoping I can start making progress tonight or tomorrow.

Watching Interview with the Vampire, as well as rereading the book, has sent me down some mental wormholes as well. I actually wound up digging up copies of my vampire writings from the past (for teh record: the novellas “The Nightwatchers” and “Blood on the Moon,” and my novel Need), which aren’t terrible (I really need to stop defaulting to all my old work is terrible because it’s not); I had in fact forgotten a lot about them, to be honest. I just read the beginnings of all three to get some sort of idea of what I had done and was like, oh, wow, I didn’t remember this character or I’d forgotten this was set during Carnival and so on. So I am hoping that rereading them won’t be painful and will remind me of some other things that I wanted to work on; I was always disappointed that I never got to do a follow-up to Need–I’d created what I thought was an interesting paranormal mythology that I really wanted to explore more, but never got the chance.

Maybe when I retire?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines.

That’s Alright

Sunday morning and I slept really well last night, so am feeling rested. I believe the Saints game is tonight, if I am not mistaken, which gives me most of the day to get things done. I did manage to get some things done yesterday in the wake of the LSU debacle; my kitchen is all straightened and cleaned up (I also watched the Auburn debacle against Georgia before giving up on football entirely for the day, as it was clearly not meant to be my day at all) and I finished reading my Donna Andrews book (Round Up the Usual Peacocks, more on that later) while getting started on my revisitation of Interview with the Vampire (which I realized, once again, upon starting that it’s really not a horror story of the kind one usually associates with vampires) and I also got some other things done yesterday as well. Today I have even more things to do, including picking up the groceries I ordered yesterday, and am hoping that I’ll be able to get a lot of things powered through. My coffee tastes great, I feel rested–if a little loopy from sleep, and that should wear off rather soon. A new episode of Interview with the Vampire should drop today as well–it’s fun to reread the book while watching the new adaptation–and of course, tomorrow I have to return to the office to see how much, if any, of a difference returning to the office for Mondays will make in how my work week goes every week.

We watched Sins of Our Mother last night on Netflix, a documentary about the so-called “Doomsday Mom,” who began to believe we were living in the end times and that she and her lover were modern-day prophets, which led to the murders of their spouses, one of her brothers, and two of her children. She hasn’t been tried yet–which of course led to my “why would you make the documentary before the trial?” question–but it was interesting. I feel incredibly sorry for her son Colby, her only surviving child–how do you go on with your life after something like this happens to you?– which is why the impact of crime on people is becoming more and more interesting to me than actually writing whodunnit murder mysteries. How do you go back to your normal life? How do you carry on, go on, get past the horror of your brother and sister being murdered by your mother and her lover? That she has become almost completely insane with religious fervor? I shudder at the thought.

We also started watching the Netflix adaptation of Christopher Pike’s The Midnight Club into a series. I loved Christopher Pike back in the day, once I discovered him; I made a point of going back and reading everything he wrote, and it was reading Pike (and from him, discovering other y/a horror/suspense writers in his wake like R. L. Stine, Jay Bennett, and Lois Duncan) that led me into writing my original three young adult novels (Sara, Sorceress, Sleeping Angel). I liked the Pike novels because they were so damned dark, and happy endings were never guaranteed in a Pike book (I always liked Pike more than Stine, even though I liked the way Stine linked his books together under the Fear Street series header), which I also liked. The Midnight Club is totally dark; the premise is that the book is set in a hospice for terminally ill teenagers, and they gather every night at midnight to tell each other stories–scary stories for the most part, but stories–and they also swear that the first one to die will try to come back and tell the others what death is like…while strange things are going on in the hospice itself, in which you can never be sure if those things are really happening or if the kids themselves are hallucinating from their drug protocols, which as I recall kept me off-balance as I read the book. Such a great premise, really; I don’t really remember much of the book other than the setting and the dying teenagers–which is pretty fucking grim, if you don’t mind me pointing that out–so there’s this almost-casual acceptance of their impending deaths as well as their curiosity about the supernatural and the world beyond–or if there even is one. I remember reading The Midnight Club and thinking “this is really heavy shit for teenagers to digest” but then…I was reading Stephen King when I was a teenager, so there’s that…but Pike was the one who made me realize my perceptions of what you could and couldn’t do in young adult fiction were heavily skewed and incredibly incorrect in almost every way. I’m not sure I am going to write any more of them, to be honest–I do have ideas for any number of others, but I think I’m going to pause my young adult writing for a while and maybe, perhaps, do some stand alones that are for adults rather than a young adult audience…(although I think mine do qualify as readable by adults, too, but I am not the best judge of any of that, really)

I really need to work on my book this morning once I finish this and get cleaned up. I want to do a little more reading on Interview today, and I have some other things that need to get done, too. The key is to not allow myself to get derailed or distracted, which is never an easy thing for me to have not happen, you know? I sometimes wonder how much I could get done if I weren’t so easily distracted from everything, but there you are; we’ll never know because I will always be distracted. Heavy sigh.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines this morning. Y’all have a lovely Sunday and if you have an NFL team you root for, I hope they do well today.

Beautiful Child

GEAUX TIGERS!

It is insanely early to have a kickoff in Tiger Stadium at eleven in the morning–I think I actually went to a game that started this early; I remember we had to get up at eight to get ready and barely managed to get into the stadium and into our seats as the band took the field for Pre-game (always one of the highlights of a game there; if you don’t know what LSU’s Pregame is, it’s that song the band plays that has those four notes–bah, BAH bah bah! (to me it always sounds like Hold That Ti-ger!)–and the entire stadium erupts. I mean, it really does. If you ever have a moment to kill, go to Youtube and search for LSU Marching Band Pre-game–you should immediately recognize the music. But having the game so early for me means I’ll most likely be emotionally and physically drained after it ends, and I’ll probably get sucked into the chair watching games all day (I mean, I should watch the Georgia-Auburn game, even if it is going to be a bloodbath), but hopefully I’ll find some time to make notes and do some reading as well.

I slept very well last night (again), which was really super nice, and we finished Your Honor last night–didn’t see that ending coming, apparently it’s been renewed for a second season–and also started watched this past week’s episode of Bad Sisters–God, how I hate John-Paul–and also caught this weeks Queer for Fear, which focused primarily on James Whale and Alfred Hitchcock, with a lovely section on Anthony Perkins (my God, what a beautiful man he was) and how Psycho essentially ended his career–to this day his failure to even be nominated for an Oscar for that performance is a crime; he should have won; it’s one of the best screen performances of all time–which both Paul and I enjoyed tremendously; I’m also looking forward to more of this documentary series. Yesterday I got my work done and ordered groceries to pick up tomorrow morning; I’m beginning to see this as a marvelous convenience rather than as simple laziness now and I kind of like this because it also keeps me from making impulse buys, which always drives the price up. I did pick up the mail and make a quick stop for a few things at the Fresh Market (they carry Clearly Canadian, which I used to love back in the day, but they never have strawberry, just cherry and blackberry–I always get blackberry), and I made Shrimp Creole for the first time in a very long time; I’d forgotten how marvelous that is. There’s plenty left over for me to take to work this week as well, which is even nicer. Huzzah!

I’m hoping for a lovely, restful, relaxing day today. I’ll probably do some cleaning and organizing during the games–have to do something with all that nervous energy, after all–and tomorrow is going to be a massive work day. I am going to finish Chapter Five tomorrow if it kills me, and possibly do Chapter Six; I have some other things to do as well that I need to add to the list so I don’t forget and wind up fucked. I’m also getting my booster shot on Monday; hope that doesn’t make me feel unwell. If it does, or is anything like the last one, I should just feeling mildly unwell for a day and be over it at that time.

I also picked up Interview with the Vampire to reread again, since it’s Halloween season and all, and the show is airing. I’ve not read Mrs. Rice’s work in a long time–I kind of want to go back and finish reading The Feast of All Saints, although I am sure it’s problematic now, as it is about the Free People of Color before the Civil War–and I’d forgotten how lushly stylized her writing is; I am also probably going to want to revisit The Witching Hour as well before it’s television adaptation starts airing in January. I rather famously didn’t care for this novel the first two times I read it; I finally was enthralled with it upon my third reading, in Hawaii. I read all of her work after that until she switched to Jesus and angels; I never really came back to her when she turned to werewolves before finally coming back to Lestat and vampires. At some point I intend to read the final Lestat novels, and I should probably read The Mummy sequels she co-authored with her son.

I’ve not been feeling terribly creative this past week, despite the need to work on the book as well as the little work I have done on the book, and I am hoping that changing my work schedule will help me to feel somewhat less off-kilter in my life than I’ve been feeling since I started coming in on Fridays and staying home on Mondays. I’ve never really adjusted to it, honestly, and this feels so right, you know? I feel like my life has sort of gotten back on track since this switch was made again. I could be completely wrong; who knows? By Tuesday it’s entirely possible that I might be so tired and exhausted I won’t be able to function the way I should be able to when I get home from the office. But I am hoping that won’t indeed be the case, obviously, and thus far it has made a significant difference in how rested I feel.

Which is a good thing, really.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader–I may be back later, you never know; if not, I’ll chat with you tomorrow.

Love in Store

Friday and my dream has come true: I have switched my work-at-home day from Monday back to Friday,. effective today, and I am so pleased. I’ve never adjusted to not being in the office on Mondays (I’ve always, no matter what, come into the office for regular workdays the entire time I’ve worked here unless it’s a holiday or I was on vacation), and now I can finally get a handle on what goddamned day of the week it is from now on.

Jesus.

I slept really well last night, which was marvelous. We watched more of Your Honor last night (which is one of the longest limited series I’ve ever encountered, every time I think well, this episode must be the finale it will end and queue up yet another episode. It turns out (I just looked) that there are ten in total, so I think we have two more, and it’s apparently been renewed for a second season, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. I mean, it’s an interesting show–I also love that the local crime family’s name is Baxter, which for some reason just cracks me the hell up–but it doesn’t really hold my interest the way it should; I often find myself scrolling through social media apps on my iPad while the show is on, so I miss things that could probably help it make more sense than it does; but as Paul said last night, “they really make New Orleans look beautiful,” which the show does quite well.

Then again, New Orleans is beautiful, so they are starting from a very good place there. (One of the only reasons I could bear watching Southern Charm: New Orleans was because the city was shot so beautifully)

Today, as I already mentioned, I am back to working at home. I got my second monkeypox vaccine this week, and my body’s reaction to the second shot has been a lot more interesting than the first. The first just left me with a small pinkish red circle on my arm, maybe about a half-inch in diameter. The second left an enormous angry red circle on my other arm with a large bump in the middle so that it kind of looks like a massive spider-bite. This morning its size has receded a little bit, but I imagine I am going to end up with the same thing on this arm as I have on the other; a small slightly reddish circle around the injection spot. (When I show it to people, they can always pick out where it is but you have to actually look to see it, if that makes sense? It’s not noticeable unless you’re looking for it.) I am getting my next COVID booster on Monday, and I am really thinking that as cold/flu season is upon us again I may start masking everywhere again because it’s really been lovely not getting either a cold or the flu the last couple of years. Are masks a pain in the ass sometimes? Absolutely. But so is getting sick, and I don’t understand how putting yourself at risk of catching any illness is some kind of power statement. I don’t care if I am nauseous and feverish and can’t keep food down for a few days! FREEDOM!

I was exhausted when I got home again last night–I am kind of hoping the change in “work-at-home” days will help me with that–and so I pretty much just vegetated for the majority of the evening. Scooter demanded a lap to sleep in and I was only too happy to oblige. How did I pass the evening before Paul came home? Lost in thought about my book and mindlessly, effortlessly scrolling through social media feeds until Paul came home. The exhaustion is problematic, to be sure; when my brain is too tired to actually focus enough to read a book–which is and has always been one of the great pleasures of my life–to escape reality and allow my brain to relax, well, there’s something wrong and I don’t like it. Am I just getting older? I am sleeping better–more deeply and longer–than I have in a very long time, and yet…

But I did think about the book last night while I idled away my early evening, which isn’t a bad thing. The plot is a bit complicated, and as always, I worry about straying away and creating subplots and misdirections that I’ll forget to tie up and/or resolve by the end of the books, and since I’m not Raymond Chandler, my plots have to make sense. Sigh. It must have been nice being Chandler and getting away with having plots that didn’t make sense; I’ve not read all of Chandler’s work and right now I have The Long Goodbye sitting in my TBR pile–and as much as I want to get to it, I need to finish reading my current book and read some horror for the month of October. I want to find my copy of Interview with the Vampire for one thing–maybe during the LSU-Tennessee game I can do some work on the books, with the intent to find my copy of that as well as clear out some more for donations–so I can reread it and ‘salem’s Lot back to back, and maybe even revisit a Peter Straub before moving on to new writers and new books I’ve not read. I also recognize how ambitious that sounds, given how much trouble I’ve been having focusing on reading, but rereads aren’t the same as new reads–and it was rereads that got me back into reading again after the Shutdown in 2020.

Sighs happily. That was when I revisited Mary Stewart, and how delightful was that?

All right, I should head into the spice mines now. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader–and I’ll talk to you again tomorrow before the game.

Never Forget

And now it’s Thursday, which always sort of feels like we’re on a greased slide heading into the weekend. Hurray! I slept really well last night, which was really nice, and was awake (as usual) before the alarm went off. Yesterday wasn’t a complete waste–the primary thing when I am mentally fatigued, as I was yesterday, is that it’s very hard for me to focus and incredibly easy for me to get distracted.

Not that it’s ever difficult to distract me from anything. I should have been voted most distracted when I was in high school.

I did pull some teeth, er, work on the book yesterday; it wasn’t easy and was incredibly difficult to get those words on the page, but that happens sometimes. It happened earlier this week and I wrote some shitty words and then turned around and revised them and finished the chapter, remarkably easily; I hope that will be the case when I get home tonight and sit down to the computer to start writing. I am still behind as ever on everything, but I am slowly starting to make some progress. I think Saturday this weekend is going to be a completely lost day for me–that eleven a.m. start time for the LSU-Tennessee game is perfectly timed to pretty much spoil the entire day; I may order groceries for pick-up after the game is over. I don’t know, I’ll probably play it by ear and see how the day goes, but I doubt very seriously I’ll get any writing done on Saturday–so maybe I can just sit in my chair and edit, I don’t know. The games stress me out so much; it’s insane that this is something I enjoy but I also need to remind myself, regularly: it’s just a game and it doesn’t really impact your life one way or the other; obviously it’s better to win than to lose, but in either case it doesn’t change anything in my day-to-day existence so why waste the energy getting so worked up over a game? There’s a reason that “fan” is derived from “fanatic”…which is something I remind myself every time I am watching a game and starting to get worked up. So incredibly crazy to get worked up over a college football game that really doesn’t matter in the overall scheme of things…

Which of course means I’ll be screaming at the television before the first quarter is half over.

I don’t think I am going to make the deadline for next year’s Bouchercon anthology; I have a story but I am not pleased with it nor am I sure what the right way to fix it could be–it’s been languishing in my files for quite some time, I think I originally got the idea for it watching the true crime docuseries I’ll Be Gone in the Dark–how the rapist/killer would access his victims, through drainage ditches and canals running behind properties (which is yet another reason my parents always wanted a fenced yard) made me start thinking about that very thing; what if a gay couple came home after a night at a gala fundraiser, arguing all the way home in the car, come home to find their adopted daughter tied up in the house and she says he’s still in the house…it’s the end I am, as always, having trouble sticking the landing with. I think maybe I should print it out again and reread it at some point over the weekend (because I have so little else to do), and maybe something will come to me. I like the ending but I don’t think it necessarily works, which is the primary problem; I think everything works right up until the end–and then it kind of falls apart. But if I clean up some of the earlier stuff…you never know.

And who knows? Maybe I am being overly critical, and should just submit the story and see what happens.

We watched some more of Your Honor last night, which keeps going even further and further astray, but I am also starting to understand the casting of Bryan Cranston even more (he’s a very charismatic and talented actor) because this series has a bit of a Breaking Bad, noir feeling to it: you do something wrong–bend a law, perhaps–and then it continues snowballing and you’ve already lost your moral compass and when do you say “enough” to lies and cover-ups and crimes? Do you keep digging your own grave? The fun part about it is there’s not really anyway to foresee how this is going to go, which makes watching it all the more fun. We also watched Andor, which I am loving. Seriously, I love what Disney is doing with the Star Wars universe with the television shows.

And on that note, tis off to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader and remember–it’s Friday Eve!

Tusk

Monday and a work-at-home day, for data entry and other things. I also have a meeting at one (yay) and I am hoping to get some things delivered today so I don’t have to leave the house. Yesterday started out well; I wrote my entry and did some writing planning and then repaired to my easy chair to read; but then Paul got up and came downstairs and I decided that as long as I kept my notebook/journal handy, I could make notes while thinking and watching television. We missed the Saints game; I’d forgotten it was in London and by the time I checked what time it was starting it was already over so I can’t even blame the Saints for my complete (well, pointed, at any rate) failure to get as much done yesterday as I had wanted to–which means it’s entirely my fault.

I did watch the first two episodes of the new Interview with the Vampire series, and it put a lot of thoughts into my head. I thought it was remarkably well done and well-cast–I would have gone for a Skargaard for Lestat, but that could be True Blood’s fault as well–and it was beautifully filmed. The changes made to the original book (I liked that it’s structured as a follow-up interview to the original interview) and story were barely noticeable. It’s also amazing how different Jacob Anderson looks as Louis as opposed to Greyworm from Game of Thrones. It also made me start thinking about vampires and how/why they are so popular with queers–this show has no gay subtext, it’s right there in your face–and also remembered how incredibly disappointed I’d been when I first read the book, as a teenager. At that point in time, I’d forgotten that Dark Shadows had turned a vampire into a romantic leading man–my thoughts about vampires were entirely shaped at that time by Dracula and ‘salem’s Lot, and that was what I was expecting from Interview…and that is most definitely not what the book was. I read it again about ten years or so later, and still didn’t care for it much; I didn’t come into an appreciation of Anne Rice’s work until the 1990’s–a friend told me to read The Mummy so I did and enjoyed it, and then I read and loved The Witching Hour, so I took the first three volumes of The Vampire Chronicles with me to Hawaii on a vacation and that time…well, that time I got into the books and enjoyed them. Mrs. Rice soon became a “buy in hardcover on release” author for me, and remained that way for a very long time. I do think there’s a line from Barnabas Collins in Dark Shadows to Lestat/Louis to True Blood/the Sookie Stackhouse books; I once described True Blood as “Dark Shadows with sex, violence, nudity and blood.”

We then watched the first episode of Queer for Fear, a documentary series on Shudder about queer themes and subtexts in horror films, which was fun and certainly fit the theme of the day, but then we moved on to Your Honor starring Bryan Cranston, filmed and set in New Orleans (again, we marveled a lot about the geography–“oh, look, they’re transporting him from the courthouse to OPP but for some reason are coming in from I-10 which means they somehow detoured through Metairie”–and we can’t quite figure out where Cranston and his son live; they are always taking the bridge across the river, but Cranston can go jogging from his front door down St. Charles Avenue down to the lower 9th ward (clearly, training for a marathon of some sort) and back, so I am not sure why they have the need to go back and forth to the West Bank (Paul: this would only make sense if they lived in Algiers, but why would he cross the river to go jogging?). I know, I know, it’s fiction and make-believe and has everything to do with shots and visuals that remind the viewer it’s New Orleans; both the Crescent City Connection and the Huey P. Long bridges will do that, as will the drawbridge over the Industrial Canal, and nothing says New Orleans quite like the streetcar. I also know it’s being nit-picky and “more New Orleanian than thou”, but I can’t help it when I watch something filmed here (I was also identifying where scenes were shot in Interview with the Vampire as well). I’m sure New Yorkers do this a lot, too. We also watched this week’s House of the Dragon, which I am enjoying–there’s really no good characters to root for in this one; they are essentially all terrible people; at least in Game of Thrones we could root for the Starks as the only decent people in Westeros. We also watched the new episode of The Serpent Queen, as Catherine is now slowly coming into her own. I really am enjoying this series; I hope it doesn’t go off the rails at some point.

But now it’s October already–yikes; it seems as though this year has sped past but on the other hand January also seems like it was a million years ago already–and I’ve really got to start getting things done.

As I’ve been doing my entries about writing my books, it’s been a fun journey down memory lane, as I remember things I wanted to do and plans I had that somehow were either forgotten or pushed aside as other things crowded them out of my brain. Watching Interview and Queer for Fear reminded me of my own world of the supernatural I was trying to create with some of my horror writing (I don’t really consider my vampire writing as horror; yes, vampires, but the primary focus of them was the eroticism), and somehow I’ve managed to stick to the rules of that weird world of the supernatural I was creating through short fiction that spilled over into the erotica; so far I’ve done vampires and witches, rougaroux and le feu follet, all tied around parishes on the other side of the river and west/south of New Orleans. I have a couple of short stories to write still, and a book to get done–and I want to read more. I want to finish reading my current book and I think the first book for Horror Month will be a reread of Interview with the Vampire, perhaps followed by a reread of ‘salem’s Lot; why not explore the vampires?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely first Monday in October, Constant Reader, and I will be checking in with you again tomorrow morning before the sun comes up. Yay.

Honey Hi

Sunday morning and I slept very well again last night, which felt marvelous. I stayed in bed later than I probably should have, but it felt so nice I didn’t want to get up and I did, in fact, fall back asleep relatively easily (I’ve woken up at six the last three mornings and went back to sleep for a little while longer). I did chores mostly yesterday–I intended to read and write and edit with the television on in the background, but the Kentucky-Mississippi game sucked me in (as did the Texas A&M-Mississippi State one) after I got home from my self-care (it was a back wax, okay?) and picked up the mail (there was none) I jus kind of vegetated while doing some chores around the house. I managed to get the bed linens laundered and another two loads of dishes done (it really is amazing how many dishes we dirty up during the week, seriously) and then we settled in for the LSU game last night, which was a doozy.

LSU played like they were walking in their sleep for the first quarter and a half, falling behind quickly 17-0 before a strip-and-scoop fumble turned into an LSU touchdown, and they engineered a drive in the closing seconds of the first half to pull within three, 17-14, and after a quick three-and-out to open the third, managed a strong, time-consuming drive to take the lead 21-17 and that was the end of the scoring. There was a super bizarre close to the game that included three turnovers in the final five minutes (Auburn then LSU before Auburn again), which left the Tigers able to run out the clock to close on 21-17 game that will be considered another classic in the history of the Tiger Bowl season. (Also, on the opening kickoff an LSU player–Sevyn Banks–was so severely injured he had to be strapped to a board and carted off the field before being rushed to the hospital, which kind of cast a pall over the game and the stadium, but fortunately Banks was able to come back to the game in a neck brace and rejoin the team, thank the Lord for this. These kinds of injuries are literally terrifying to see happen. Here’s hoping Banks recovers completely and this has no impact on the rest of his life.

All kinds of weird things happened yesterday–who had Oklahoma being blown out by TCU on their scorecard for 2022?–and so this weird and wacky season goes on. Georgia almost got beat by Missouri, Arkansas put a scare into Alabama, and let’s not forget that A&M game; the Aggie alums have got to be seriously questioning Jimbo Fisher’s outrageous salary around now. Sure, they beat Alabama and managed to finally beat LSU twice in a four year period after losing like eight straight, but they’ve never been a real contender other than the truncated 2020 season and let’s face facts, that was a weird season that shouldn’t really count anyway.

Someone really needs to write a history of the LSU-Auburn “Tiger Bowl” rivalry, as it has provided the conference with some of its most exciting games of the last thirty or so years, when the teams finally began playing each other every year.

Today? This morning I am curling up with my Donna Andrews book before I put in a Costco delivery order and spend the afternoon writing (and cleaning, and organizing). There will be new episodes of The Serpent Queen and House of the Dragon to get through this evening, and I believe Interview with the Vampire premieres today as well. There’s a lot of shows we watch returning soon, and other new ones premiering that we are looking forward to catching as well. I’ve also found a couple of half-hour comedies on various streaming services that look interesting, or like they could be funny (sometimes you just need something funny and short; seriously can’t recommend Reboot enough) we can try out. I got one of those dinner kits from Fresh Market last night–teriyaki chicken–which I am going to make for dinner tonight…my, what an exciting thrill ride this entry is for you, Constant Reader.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader!

That’s Enough for Me

Ah, Saturday.

I have some self-care scheduled for today which will be lovely, and I am actually hoping to be able to make it to the gym tomorrow to start my working out again. I slept really well last night–I don’t know what it is about waking up on your own without the alarm that makes such a significant difference mentally and physically, but it does–and woke up a little while ago. I am swilling coffee as I type, the dryer is re-fluffing a load preparatory to being reloaded and run again with the load waiting in the washing machine, and I also have to empty and refill the dishwasher. I have a new cable modem to install–pray for me, seriously–and I am going to do some reading this morning before my self-care appointment. That’s the plan, at any rate. But it’s very nice to feel rested and with my day stretching out in front of me the way that it currently does. LSU’s game is tonight and is an away game–Auburn at Auburn–and I am not sure what games are on today during the day, but I will undoubtedly have them on the television in the background as I do things today. Paul has his trainer and then is going into the office to work on a grant so I have the whole day at home to myself, which is kind of nice, too.

I’ve also been debating getting a new microwave and, I don’t know, actually reading the manual so I know how to operate it properly? Ha ha ha, read the manual, as if.

But most importantly, today I need to get back to work on the Scotty book and the other project I am working on. I am going to read Donna Andrews for a few hours this morning before moving on to rereading the Scotty chapters again so I can fix the mess that is Chapter Three so I can write chapters four and five this weekend. It would be amazing to write a chapter a day for a couple of weeks, but I am shooting to have the first real draft of this finished by Halloween, so I can fix it in November and turn it in on time in December, which would be amazing. I have another project in the works to follow that one, and I also have to finish the other project I am working on, but I am trying to get that done by doing a single chapter of it per week. I’ve fallen off my writing schedule since Bouchercon and the back injury considerably, and I really need to get back on that horse.

I also have a book coming out in December, so I also need to spend some time figuring out how to do promo in November. Heavy heaving sigh.

Last night was nice. I wound up staying at the office far later than I’d intended to–things happen–and so I came straight home. Paul came home and left for the gym, so I futzed around and moved things and can’t really remember a whole lot of what I did other than scrolling through social media on my iPad while videos streamed on autoplay from the Youtube app on my television. When Paul came home we watched the next two episodes of Reboot, which concludes everything that has already aired so we have to wait for the next episode to drop (which is disappointing) but it just keeps getting better and better. I am actually enjoying Paul Reiser, whom I’ve never been able to enjoy in anything since his masterful turn as the corporate villain in Aliens–I hated that character so much that it has colored everything Reiser has done ever since, but he is terrific in this; definitely Emmy-worthy for sure–and the writing is just so smart and funny and clever; and Johnny Knoxville is also amazing. The entire cast is amazingly perfect. I cannot recommend this show highly enough. I am curious to see where it is going to go–the premise is so clever, and so many shows never manage to develop much beyond “clever premise”–but hope it remains as light and fresh and funny as it started.

Ah, the morning continues to slip through my fingers, so I am going to bring this to a close and head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader.

I Know I’m Not Wrong

I posted a list of things–a thread, if you will–on Twitter yesterday of helpful hints to get prepared for a hurricane-related power loss; simple things I’ve picked up from other people over the years, and was more than a little surprised by the response that received from other users in the Twitter-world. But it’s all common-sense things you might not think about when you’re panicking and battening down the hatches, as it were. The refrigerator and food spoiling without electricity is one I will always wish I knew before Hurricane Katrina, frankly. It also looks as though Tampa is going to get a direct hit, and I don’t think it’s gotten one of those in a very long time–since the 1960’s, at least, if I am not incorrect, and that area is particularly vulnerable to storm surges and so forth. I’ve not lived there since 1995, but there are still people I care about who live there, and obviously, I’m sending them good thoughts and positive energy and hope everything will turn out okay for them and the power will be back soon and the storm will do little damage. (UPDATE: Tampa has not had a direct hit of this strength since 1921! Over a hundred years ago!)

It’s also kind of interesting because one of my in-progress projects (one of too many) involves my Tampa stand-in city while under hurricane threat. YIKES. (In that self-absorbed reflex I suspect all of us have but manage to successfully filter before those thoughts come out of our mouths, there’s a part of me that thinks maybe if your idea for Scotty IV hadn’t been about a hurricane…and so of course in the back of my head I can’t help but wonder if writing about such a thing didn’t wish it into being…because of course that’s how things work and my mind has that kind of power mwa-ha ha ha ha! I mean, come on.)

I feel rested this morning but felt like a burnt out husk for most of the weekend. I got all of my day job duties completed yesterday and yes, my eyes were crossing from the data entry by the time it was finished right around quitting time for the day, which was helpful; I don’t think I could have faced another form yesterday but now I am all caught up, which is great and puts me in great shape ahead for the coming weekend. Last night we got caught up on Bad Sisters and watched two stand-up comedy shows, the new one from Patton Oswalt and one from a non-binary comedian from Australia, Rhys Nicholson, and both were highly entertaining and quite funny. After that I repaired to the bed for my night’s rest, which seems to have gone well. Today I need to start working my way through my to-do list, and need to add some things to it. I need to work on the book this evening after work, so here’s hoping today won’t be a emotionally and physically taxing one at the office. I am trying not to get worked up or stressed out about how far behind on this damned thing I actually am–if I get back to work, albeit slowly, I’ll be able to get the damned thing finished on time and one great stressor will be lifted out off my shoulders.

One fun thing I got to do this past weekend was listen to voices–not the ones inside my head, of course–but rather voice actors auditioning to do the audiobook for A Streetcar Named Murder, which also triggered me to do the pronunciation key for whoever the final voice actor is. All four were fine, but there was something about the way this one of them spoke that just seemed right to me, and so I picked her (I think the fact that she was also the only one to say New Orleans correctly played a part in it as well as the fact that she didn’t try to do an accent of some sort; people never really get that the natives here don’t have Southern accents–one of the biggest mistakes made in movies and television shows set here; the actual New Orleans accent, if the area could be said to have one, is very similar to the Brooklyn one–“dese” and “dose” and “the kitchen zink” and so forth; it’s a working class accent known as yat, and it gets its name from saying “where yat?”), and I am actually looking forward to listening to my book at some point. How exciting is that?

It’s also kind of hard to fathom that September is ending and October is nigh; 2022 has gone by very quickly–although January also at this point seems like it was a million years ago in the past. It’s been quite a year and I’ve traveled more this year than I have in many years prior to the pandemic, frankly. I started off the year with the Birmingham/Wetumpka weekend, moved on to Left Coast Crime, the Edgars, Sleuthfest, and Bouchercon, with a trip to Boston for Crime Bake coming up too, and I also went to Kentucky for a long weekend, and will be heading back up for Thanksgiving this year (which means listening to Ruth Ware on the way up and Carol Goodman on the way home, woo-hoo!) but next year my traveling will be severely curtailed; probably Bouchercon in San Diego will be my only travel in 2023 other than Kentucky. I am getting too old to travel well, alas–Bouchercon knocked me out for an entire week, but that was also partly due to the back injury I sustained while I was there–and it also put me into a hole of being behind that I don’t really want to think about too much, you know? I despair of ever clearing out my email inbox, and as for all the writing I need to get done…well, somehow it will happen or it won’t. Heavy heaving sigh.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. May your Tuesday be all you hope it can be, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow.

Save Me a Place

Oddly enough, as I sat in my easy chair the other day watching college football games and letting my body and mind and creativity rest, I had an idea for either a stand alone book or a new series, one way or the other, and it’s something I find interesting enough that I might even consider it. It would be a difficult proposition, to be sure–given the decline in retail sales and everything going to an on-line and electronic model–but I was looking at a map of New Orleans on my iPad because it occurred to me that I didn’t know where Tulane’s not-so-new-anymore on-campus football stadium was; so I pulled up a map to look because I was thinking that was a great line for a Scotty book–I always forget there’s a football stadium in Uptown-so of course I had to go looking for it. The map also brought up businesses in the area and lo and behold, there’s a comic book shop uptown on the lake side of Claiborne and it hit me: no one has ever done a cozy series about a comic book shop and that opened up an entire world of possibilities for me: the main character is an aspiring comic book artist who works in the shop, and of course, you can get into the whole thing about who actually is into comics and the history of comic books and it would give me an excuse to actually learn more about comics and their history and…

You see how this ends up going, don’t you?

I know any number of comics geeks–Alex Segura Jr, author of this year’s brilliant Secret Identity, about the business side of producing comics, is one–and one of my best friends from college owns a comic book shop in central California, or did at some point–and of course my neighbor Michael is also heavily into comics, having gone to Comic Con in San Diego, even. And of course I’d get to make up shit, which is always a huge plus for me. I love making up shit! And of course, it would be fun to write from the point of view of a struggling artist.

I mean, it’s not like I wouldn’t know anything about that…

The Saints played terribly yesterday and logged another “L” in the record book (how bad are the Falcons?) yesterday; I didn’t watch but rather followed on Twitter while I did things around the house. The Saints games sometimes cause me too much stress and then I am emotionally exhausted afterwards–too drained to be of much use, so sometimes I just follow it on Twitter or it’ll be on in the living room while I work in the kitchen. I did get the Costco delivery yesterday, and should probably run some errands at some point today, but it is Work-at-Home Monday and I have work I have to get done. I am behind still from the Bouchercon trip and the ensuing back injury, but am hopeful I will start getting caught up somewhat soon. Emails beget emails, though, and therefore that is a sisyphean task indeed.

We watched the new Star Wars show Andor last night, and I am so happy Deigo Luna’s character is getting an origin story. So far, the only show they’ve done I didn’t buy into completely was The Book of Boba Fett, and am thinking maybe we should give that another try at some point. After those three episodes we moved on to The Serpent Queen and American Gigolo, which I think we’re going to give up on. I love Jon Bernthal, but I’m just not buying this story for the character. It’s an interesting idea–and full props to them for turning it into a sequel series in which Julian actually goes to jail for the murder he was accused of committing in the film, but I’m just not really getting vested into the show, either, no matter how much I want to. The Serpent Queen remains fantastic, and gets better with each episode as Catherine explains to her new maid her philosophy of survival, illustrated with scenes from her past. Samantha Morton is fantastic as the older queen and the actress who plays her as a young woman is also equally good. But it’s a period of history I particularly love, and of course, Catherine de Medici is one of the most fascinatingly complex women to hold power in history. The reality of her life was dramatic enough to drive a series, and they’ve done a pretty decent job of following the actual history, with some adjustments here and there.

Also keeping an eye out for Hurricane Ian, which seems to have Florida’s Gulf Coast clearly in its sights. We are just outside the Cone of Uncertainty, which doesn’t mean we’re safe–there could always be another westward shift to the potential path–but I do concern myself with Florida and friends there. I don’t remember the last time Tampa took a direct hit; I don’t think they have in quite some time, and I can imagine a storm surge into the bay and into the rivers that drain into it would be enormously problematic for the city–as well as for Clearwater and St. Petersburg on the peninsula on the other side of the bay. Stay safe, people.

My podcast interview about Daphne du Maurier, with a particular emphasis on My Cousin Rachel, went really well. It was for my friend Ricky Grove, whom I know from my days in the Horror Writers Association and when I put on World Horror Con back in the day here in New Orleans (he is the author Lisa Morton’s partner–have you read Lisa? You should read Lisa). I can talk about du Maurier all day, and we did continue talking for at least another hour after we stopped recording; I do love to talk books and writing, after all, with the end result that I felt horribly drained when it was over. Ah, yes, the age-old problem of the introvert having to be an extrovert on a day when he usually doesn’t have to do anything of the kind. I retired to my easy chair, but found the draining of my energy to have been far too effective for me to focus clearly on anything. I did do another blog entry about my work–this time my Todd Gregory erotic novel Every Frat Boy Wants It, while starting others about Baton Rouge Bingo and the second Todd Gregory book (Games Frat Boys Play)–but when I tried to work on the book or anything else (including trying to read) I couldn’t get anything done so finally gave up and made myself useful around the house. Hopefully after an eyes-crossing day of data entry and quality assurance on testing logs, I’ll be able to dive back into the Scotty book. I know I am procrastinating with Chapter Three and should probably just stop worrying about it and move on, but that’s just not how my creativity works. Heavy heaving sigh. But that’s okay, the stress of being behind will come in handy as December 1 draws ever more near.

Or so I tell myself.

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