Category: goals

The Itchy Glowbo Blow

Wednesday and we’ve made it halfway through the week, Constant Reader. Didn’t think it was quite possible, did you, when Monday dawned so early and ugly? We expecting thunderstorms today in New Orleans–it feels cooler and damp this morning, but I don’t know when we are supposed to have said storms; probably this afternoon. I slept really well again last night–it’s been lovely getting good sleep lately. I felt a bit tired yesterday when I got home from work, and so took it a little easier on myself when I got home. I managed to get caught up on my emails (such a weird feeling) and did some writing last night. I think I’m still a bit in the post-book malaise phase of things, so writing anything isn’t easy (not that it ever is) but Paul got home late so was left to my own devices once I finished writing for the evening. I did watch some documentaries on Youtube about the Hapsburgs last night (I also discovered an English-language biography about her–Margaret of Austria–which I added to the my list of books to buy…which is almost as out of control as my TBR stack, which is now essentially the entire living room), and I read a short story in Hitchcock’s My Favorites in Suspense anthology; a dark little Charlotte Armstrong story called “The Enemy.” Armstrong was a writer I discovered as a tween, when Mom let me join the Mystery Guild Book Club; I got an omnibus by her (The Witch’s House, Mischief, The Dream Walker) which I greatly enjoyed. I rediscovered Armstrong thanks to the work of both Sarah Weinman and Jeffrey Marks, which enabled me to continue reading in her canon.

Armstrong won an Edgar for Best Novel for A Dram of Poison, a charming if dark little story of suspense; maybe the rare Edgar winner where there’s no dead body but the plot has to do with preventing an accidental death? It’s very clever, and incredibly charming, but beneath that clever charming surface it says something dark and awful about human nature and character–people who are unhappy spreading their misery to others. Armstrong was also made a Grand Master by Mystery Writers of America. Her work may seem a bit dated in the modern day–technology and society have moved on from the times she lived and wrote in–but I think it’s well worth the read. “The Enemy” is that same style of writing as Dram, a serious subject presented charmingly, and the death of a child’s dog the catalyst for an exposé of something darker and nastier…and yes, the plot also hinges on the darkness a human being is capable of creating. It’s a really clever, if slightly dated, story–and you can’t help but smile or laugh at the last line of the story. I am really enjoying these time capsules into the past, to tell you the truth. I bought a few more of these anthologies on eBay yesterday, too. It’s nice to have short story collections around for those times when my brain can’t really focus on reading an entire novel.

I have been listening to Carol Goodman’s The Drowning Tree on Audible, but I may have to break down and finish actually reading a physical copy because I can’t keep listening every day and with my memory a literal thing of the past these days, I’m not sure I remember enough of the story to pick it up again this weekend. I also picked up copies of her new novel, The Bones of the Story, along with Paul Tremblay’s new short story collection, The Beast You Are. I do like Tremblay’s writing–A Head Full of Ghosts was one of the best horror novels of the last decade, and I’ve liked everything else of his that I’ve read–and I think this may even be his second collection. I am also hoping to pull together another collection myself this year–This Town and Other Macabre Stories–but I am not sure if I will have the time. I also got the copy edits for a short story I contributed to an anthology in my inbox last night, so that has to go onto the to-do list, and I still have page proofs to get through. But for the most part, it seems as though I have a guilt-free free weekend, which one can never truly go wrong with, either. I’ll have some errands to run, of course–I always have errands to run–but there’s no stress or pressure on me either, which is kind of nice. I think maybe that’s the reason I’ve been sleeping so well this week? No pressure and my schedule has kind of normalized, gotten back to normal, settled back into the routine my body is used to, perhaps?

Yes, that makes total sense to me.

I also have ideas and thoughts pinging around in my head. I’m itching to get back to the works I have in progress; I want to get a strong first draft of two different novels finished before I leave for Bouchercon next (!!!) month. I actually, finally, made a to-do list yesterday; I am hoping that I can get my life back on track the way it was before the pandemic and the madness of the last few years. That doesn’t mean that my blood pressure won’t continue to go up predicated on the constant assaults on everyone who’s not a cisgender straight man from the demons on the right–which is part of the reason my interest in the Civil War and the 1850’s, that terrible lead-up to the split, has been heightened these last few months. I do see a lot of similarities in the split between conservative v. progressive today, which was predicated along the lines of abolitionist/pro-human trafficking back then. One of the books my father gave me to read was called Southerners in Blue, which was a novelization of the true story (albeit poorly written) of a Union sympathizer and others like him in Winston County, Alabama. (If you’re not familiar with Winston County, the easiest way to explain it is this county did not vote for secession and essentially stated that if Alabama had the right to secede from the Union, the county had the right to secede from Alabama. They did not secede from Alabama, just said they had the right to predicated on the secession arguments being presented, but have gone down in Alabama history and lore as having actually seceded even though they most certainly did not) Basically, in some of the northern counties of Alabama there was basically a second civil war, between the “secesh” and the “Unionist” supporters, and the mountains of north Alabama were filled with deserters from the Confederate Army, This was also novelized into a book called Tories of the Hills by Wesley Sylvester Thompson, which is incredibly rare (my uncle has a copy, which my aunt won’t let be removed from her house–wise, as I would totally steal it). I had read another book also while I was up there, about the Kansas-Missouri border war–which had a decided “secesh” slant to it, of course, while complaining that all previous histories were “unsympathetic to the Missouri slave-owner point of view”. I’m sure he had a point, but simply because there are two sides to every story doesn’t mean each side deserves to be heard, or that each side’s opinion has equal weight. It did spark my interest, though, and I really think there’s a book in this little-known history of north Alabama. Again, it would be difficult to write–lots of potential landmines there–but it’s also, as I said, not very well known and with today’s tribalism mentality–not to mention how loud the Lost Cause fanatics are–it’s hard to wrap one’s mind around the notion that the South wasn’t monolithic in its thinking.

Because no group of people are, really, which is why I don’t like being asked for a gay perspective on anything; I can only speak for myself.

But while I continue to research this aspect of history and try to figure out a way to get a novel out of it, I am going to map out two others. One is already in progress, and the other is a New Orleans ghost story I’ve been wanting to write for quite some time now. The trick is to make it different from every other ghost story I’ve already written. Good luck with that, Mr. Repetitive!

Heavy heaving sigh.

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

Know Who You Are At Every Age

Here we are on Tuesday, blearily drinking coffee and wishing I was independently wealthy. Don’t get me wrong, I do love my job, but I really love not waking up to an alarm that much more. Sleep has always been a challenge this last decade or so, and sleeping anywhere other than my own bed makes it all the more harder to get a good night’s sleep. When I am tired, I tend not to be hungry or thirsty, and I get off my schedule. Not eating results in me being hungry–something I am not familiar with, so I never know what that is–and dehydrated, which makes me even more tired and even less hungry, and you see how it all works together to escalate into something horrendous? I was off my game all last week recovering from just that same combination of moronic Greg behaviors and going off all my medications at the same time was probably not the best way to handle things. Had I not forgotten my pill dispensary at the hotel in Jasper the vacation week and the week back might have gone completely differently.

At least I’d like to believe so, at any rate.

Yesterday wasn’t a bad day. I wasn’t tired for most of the day, having slept decently on Sunday night, and diving headfirst back into work was, as always, a bit jarring after a weekend of only having to deal with either Paul or the cat. It was also busier than usual, which was nice–it’s always lovely when clients are able to access our services than when they aren’t–if a bit hectic. But I got caught up on all of my work chores, so tomorrow when I go in I’ll already be slightly ahead of the game. I got the dishes done and some laundry, and managed to do some cleaning up around the kitchen (including organizing and filing) before I called it for the night and repaired to the chair to watch television. I even made dinner, if you can believe it; I cannot recall the last time I made dinner!

Speaking of games, how cool was it that Paul Skenes and Dylan Cruise went 1-2 in the pro baseball college draft? First time the top two picks in the draft were from the same team, GEAUX TIGERS! And football season is quite literally just over the horizon. Expectations are high for LSU this year–probably too high, we tend to get very enthusiastic here for very little or no reason–but last year no one thought we’d win ten games, beat Alabama, and win the Western division, either, and here we are. I don’t know if LSU will be able to pull off defeating Alabama two years in a row (only two coaches have done so–Les Miles at LSU and Hugh Freeze at Mississippi) but everyone down here is riding high after a better than expected season last year and a women’s basketball AND a baseball national championship within two months of each other this spring. Pretty fucking cool–and the first time any college has won a basketball and baseball title in the same year. (Ironically, neither team won the SEC–South Carolina won it in basketball, and Florida won in baseball.)

I slept well again last night, which was lovely. I feel rested and alert this morning. I went to bed an hour earlier last night–I had dozed off during the second episode of Hijack, and if I can asleep watching Idris Elba, I was sleepy. Paul had as well, and we both agreed that it was being tired and not the show that put us to sleep; we both are enjoying the show and I do recommend it. We had also watched Wham!, the documentary about the band that introduced George Michael to the world, the night before and also really enjoyed it; I might write more about it later as I remembered, ,while watching, that I saw Wham! in concert the summer of 1985 in Oakland. That was also one of the last concerts I ever attended (I think I saw Fleetwood Mac and Bon Jovi and Everything but the Girl after, but those were indeed the last concerts I attended–too many people, too much traffic, too much aggravation, too expensive), and it put me to thinking about George Michael, the 1980’s, and so forth; I somehow knew that George was gay almost from the very start (the same way I knew with Rock Hudson, Greg Louganis, and a number of others)–almost as though there’s some kind of genetic coding which gives gay men the ability to spot others like themselves–something primeval that goes back to the earliest times, something protective–which would make a kind of evolutionary sense, really. And that really should be talked about; it’s certainly worthy of its own entry: Gaydar, is it a thing?

I started writing something new yesterday, and it’s not really coming along that well or easily. I don’t know if that means my creativity still needs another day or so to rest and recharge or the almost constant fear that it’ll all go away has finally come true. But here’s hoping it will go better and more easily today.

ANd on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. You have a great day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow, if not later.

A Kissed Out Red Flatboat

I did read some short stories this weekend from the Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthologies I’ve gotten from eBay over the last month or so, and they’ve been wonderfully delightful and deliciously wicked. They also remind me of where I got the idea that short stories should always have a wry, slightly ironic but gasp-inducing twist at the end. I remember vaguely watching Alfred Hitchcock Presents (we were always a family who were fans of Hitchcock) and, while I was too young to remember The Twilight Zone, I do remember Night Gallery. I am also loving reading stories by masters of crime fiction that I’ve not read before; in one of the anthologies the next story up is by the delightful Charlotte Armstrong. I just read one by Anthony Boucher (for whom Bouchercon was named) called “They Bite” that was incredibly creepy; in another one of the anthologies the next story is by Roald Dahl. I would love for us to go back to the wonderful world that existed back in those days, when the short story was a much more valued art form than it is today and there were all kinds of markets for them. Heavy heaving sigh.

So, I did pull out that story the copy-editor said was “powerful,” and as I read it my horror grew, until by the time I finished it I had noted so many errors and transition problems that I thought that cannot be the version I turned in and was in thorough panic mode when I remembered to check the laptop and sure enough, there it was. I did reread the story, did spot some mistakes, but the revision I did before turning it in was clearly the right thing to do, as the story was significantly better and made more sense and was actually, pretty good. It touched on themes I seem to keep returning to, over and over again, but what can you do? I cannot control my creativity that strongly, you know; I write the stories as they come to me. I do worry that I am repeating myself though–how many hangover scenes have I written over the years (which is hilarious, because I never really had hangovers the way other people have always talked about them)?

We started watching a new crime show that seemed to have a lot of potential, but there were a couple of annoying characters in the forefront of the show that undermined it for me, so we gave up after a couple of episodes. We did watch the final episode of The Ashley Madison Affair, which was pretty interesting to me. First of all, if anything, it emphasized the fact that not everyone is content with monogamy–and since we idealize monogamy and the nuclear family in this present day society (unrealistically, I might add), the concept of open and honest conversations about sexuality and monogamy and so forth are made very difficult to have. Women are trained from childhood to see cheating as the worst possible sin of all time, as well as to try to inhibit and control their sexuality as much as possible, denying themselves the same freedom to explore what they like and enjoy while also determining what they don’t like and don’t enjoy the way single man are often allowed. Dorothy Allison wrote very strongly about how societal views and beliefs and mores about female sexuality prohibited women from becoming their full selves; there’s always someone just raring to slut-shame a woman, isn’t there? A former friend of mine who claimed herself to be an ardent feminist (she became a TERF, of course) and that women had every right to be as sexually liberated as men would then turn around and slut-shame every female celebrity that ever came up for discussion. All models were really “escorts,” and every successful woman in entertainment slept her way to the top.

That’s an interesting feminist take, isn’t it?

We also started watching a gay teen movie, and turned it off within five minutes. It was terrible. We watched something else after that, but i honestly don’t remember what it was, to tell you the horrible truth. I hate this memory nonsense, seriously.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow (or later, whatever the case may be).

Athol-Brose

Sunday morning in the Lost Apartment and how the hell are you, Constant Reader? I slept super well last night–much better than Friday night, which felt really great–and am a-rarin’ to go this morning. Yesterday was a good day, frankly and surprisingly. I woke feeling rested and well, managed to get some things going in the morning, and kept getting things done for most of the day. I also took it a little easier than I usually do, resting and relaxing for a bit before getting up again to do something else. Thus I managed to get some things accomplished.

After doing some kitchen organizing yesterday (and filing), I started going through that box of clippings and magazine copies, to better organize them in another box, and found all kinds of things that are marvelous. I’ll do some scanning today, so that there’s an electronic version of everything preserved for all time. The Queer Crime Writers group has expressed some interest in archiving some of the articles and reviews of crime authors and their books…it was funny, but it’s been a long time since I looked at those old issues of Lambda Book Report, and while I am still proud of them, it’s been long enough that I can look at them critically and see the mistakes and flaws and so forth. It was also kind of interesting because I forgot, for one thing, that I interviewed Margaret Cho for Lambda Book Report, or that Paul used to do author interviews, and so forth. It was kind of cool experiencing the nostalgia of seeing them, or the old Saints & Sinners programs from the first years, when I had to do the layout and design for them (which is why they all look so amateur hour) but I also used to do that for Lambda Book Report too. There were also clippings from other gay papers, including the local IMPACT News which then became Southern Voice-New Orleans before folding completely, the Times-Picayune, Gambit, and St. Charles magazine. It’s hard to believe, really, that I’ve been in and around the publishing business for as long as I have. It’s also kind of eerie. I’m trying not to be a cliché, but seriously, where did the time go?

I also walked to the Office Depot during the afternoon rainstorm yesterday to get ink for the printer and some notepads. I live for the 5 x 7 legal pads, and I’ve been down to my last one for quite some time, which inevitably throws me a bit off-balance, as I use them for everything, from grocery lists to “what to do today” lists” and making notes to myself to remind myself of things. I just feel better knowing there are eleven notepads in the cabinet, next to two blank journals, for me to use if and when I need one again. It’s odd how comforting that knowledge is, so it’s clearly one of my (many) neuroses.

I also started watching a true crime series on Hulu–Paul was meeting a friend for dinner and drinks last night, so I was left to my own devices–about Billy Milligan, a serial rapist who had dissociative identity disorder at a time when not much was known a bout it; many people to this day don’t believe Milligan actually had the disorder, but was simply a very good actor (The Crowded Room series on Apple Plus is based on his story), but I stopped watching by the fourth episode. Do I believe DID is a thing? Sure, why not? Even if the Sybil case turned out to be a fraud, I do think the mind is capable of splintering like that when faced with a horrific trauma; ironically, this illness was depicted beautifully over the years for Victoria Lord on One Life to Live (winning her portrayer, Erika Slezak, a ridiculous amount of daytime Emmys over the years); it began when first shown as part of the melodrama with some research done into it; as more information about it became available and more studies were done, that was also explored over the years as it reoccurred, finally culminating with the truth that she was molested by her father–that was the initial trauma that shattered her mind. I’d like to write about this sometime myself, because it’s interesting to me, but it would take a lot of research because I’d want to do it right, you know?

I got a lovely compliment on a story I contributed to an anthology yesterday, which was unexpected and lovely–especially since I hadn’t felt confident about the story when I sent it in. It’s another Alabama story, which makes me happy, and I pulled up the electronic last version I had with me here at the house and…it’s full of mistakes. I just hope that wasn’t the version I sent in. But it’s a story I wrote a long time ago, based in some sort of reality. When we used to visit Alabama in the summer time, my aunt and uncle lived in the county seat in a nice brick one-story three bedroom house whose back yard gently sloped, gradually ending in what my cousins (and everyone) just called “the ditch.” I never really knew how it was created or where it came from–in the story I referred to it as a branch of the river that was dammed up and so it dried up–but it was about twenty feet wide and fifteen foot deep; and the bottom was just as I described it–littered with rusting cans and broken glass and other debris. But it was also cool down there as it was completely shaded by all the trees lining the sides (that’s what gave me the idea that it may have been a branch of the river; it does kind of look the shores of a river); there was also a path from the back of the house to an ancient wooden footbridge to cross to the other side. I wrote the story “The Ditch” originally years ago, I think possibly for a Horror Writers Association anthology, and it was rejected. I liked the story but knew it needed more work, and when I dragged it out to use for this anthology I did a strong revision. It is a much better story now than it was, but please God, tell me I didn’t turn in this error-riddled version. More on that anthology as it develops.

I also made a list of things I need to get done today (yay for little legal pads!) and am feeling pretty good about everything this morning. It really is amazing what a difference sleep makes, isn’t it? I woke up early this morning, am enjoying my morning coffee, and I finally feel like I am part of my own reality again (it always takes a while for me to readjust to my normal daily routine). I also have some writing and reading to do today, and I hope to get to work on the page proofs either today or sometime this week.

And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in again at some point, no doubt.

Spooning Good Singing Gum

Saturday morning, and at some point I need to walk to Office Depot and get ink for my printer. I suppose I should really let go of this obsessive need to have everything printed on paper just in case. It’s terrible for the planet, for one, and I am sick of spending the money on ink. Who will win here, the neuroses or the economist?

Yesterday wasn’t a good day. I didn’t feel good still throughout most of the day, and I even took the horrifying step of getting Pepto Bismal at the grocery store. Shudder, wretched stuff. But it also occurred to me that maybe I was just hungry–another neuroses there–because I keep forgetting to eat or don’t eat enough when I am not in the office. So I ate something and did feel significantly better. And whenever that feeling started up again, I had something else. It worked. (Part of my food/eating thing is that I don’t ever get hungry and will forget to eat until I feel sick. That, sadly, is nothing new that can be blamed on the long COVID or anything.) But I was also very tired and feeling a bit burnt out from not sleeping well. Paul and I watched the first two episodes of the Ashley Madison documentary series–there will definitely be more about THAT later–and then I went to bed for the night. I did get some things done yesterday but the primary problem for the day really was not feeling good. Today I feel rested, hydrated, and not hungry, so we’re off to a very good start. I want to catch up on some correspondence this morning, and I need to write a first chapter of a book that I was asked to write this week. I intend to relax for the most part today; I have some cleaning up to do around here, which is fine–I am going to start listening to Carol Goodman’s The Drowning Tree while I clean and organize the kitchen–and I think I’m going to barbecue burgers for dinner later. Can you stand the excitement? I barely can.

I just got the official notice in the mail yesterday that our health insurance provider at work is no longer going to be our health care provider come January 1. I have literally no idea what that means for the future–will I have to buy my own and be reimbursed by the agency? Will we have to take on worse insurance than we already have out of desperation? I’ll be sixty two next month, do I really need to have this kind of stress and aggravation now that I’m getting older and am more in need of medical attention? Thank God I’m getting my teeth fixed in September because who knows what January will bring? Yay. I suppose I should start looking into Medicare and how that all works so I am not blind-sided in a couple of years. Who knows, maybe Medicare is the solution to this pending issue and then I just need supplemental insurance. It makes me head ache just to think about it all, truly. This is the part of being an adult that I really do not like.

But yes, the kitchen is a mess and I need to reorganize myself, which is the goal for today once I get this chapter written. I also will have the cover of the first book I did for this new publisher today soon, and when I share that cover is when I’ll talk more about the book, Constant Reader. I know this vagueness is troublesome, and it may read as coy (I hate coy), but it just makes sense to me to not talk about the book until I have a cover to share. I also think I am going to try to finish some of the entries I have in draft form, or delete them. (Some are over three years old and let’s face it, I’m probably never going to finish those. I can cut and paste what was written and save them as potential personal essays, which is probably the best way to do it.) I do want to go back to doing entries about my own books and why I wrote them–as best as I can remember; the two post drafts I have on here are Need and Timothy–which was kind of fun. I don’t obviously remember everything about those books, the ideas for them and how they came to be, but it’s always fun to try to remember these things.

I am also going to try to get started on Megan Abbott’s Beware the Woman once I’ve finished everything today that I need to get done around here (I suppose I should make a list, shouldn’t I?). I have too many great books on top of the TBR pile–books by Eli Cranor, Kelly J. Ford, Megan, Alison Gaylin, Jordan Harper, Christopher Bollen, and S. A. Cosby, a new true crime anthology by Sarah Weinman, and I’ll be getting the new Laura Lippman once it drops–that not reading every day is truly criminal. I also want to read more of these classic short stories from the old Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthologies I’ve been getting from eBay. It’s funny, so many retired people tell me how much I am going to miss going to work and how bored I’m going to be once I retire, which is endlessly amusing to me. I will never be bored, as long as there are books to read and books to write. As long as I can function and think and type and read…I’ll never get bored and miss my job. I suspect I will find that time management will be the big problem for me once I retire–allowing time to slip through my fingers since I no longer have to be focused because I don’t have to plan my life and writing around my job anymore–which means I’ll need to make a to-do list for every week as well as one for every day. This is what I did when I used to have to do before I went back to work full-time, and I did still waste a lot of time. The key is structure; I need structure to be productive. And I think–between the tiredness, the hunger, and not feeling well–this last week wasn’t meant to be anything other than a slow and painful transition back to reality. It wasn’t really a work week, since the holiday fell on Tuesday…this coming week is my first full week back to work in three weeks. Next week I have to take a day off for a doctor’s appointment, so there’s that, too. And then it will be August, my power bill will peak for the year and start going back down again, and at the end of the month I will be flying all the way across country to San Diego for Bouchercon.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. That chapter won’t write itself, and the apartment won’t clean and organize itself, either. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow or later. It’ll be a SURPRISE.

Suckling the Mender

Work-at-home Friday! Woo-hoo! It’s almost the weekend! I felt funky yesterday; more than just my usual end-of-the-getting-up-at-six-every-day tireds. My stomach started bothering me on Wednesday night, and I chose to eat breakfast and lunch yesterday with soft foods–yogurt, cereal, mozzarella salad–as I had the day before and that didn’t seem to be much help, as my stomach ached all afternoon. This continued throughout the evening, and I also was terribly tired when I left the office. I felt so bad–the combination of the exhaustion and the stomach issue–that I did something I never do; I laid down on the couch. I floated for about three hours in the in-between sleep and awake state of consciousness, which was where I was when Paul came home. I ate a little bit and felt better, but it’s still odd. I think it’s not eating enough, maybe? This was how I felt on Sunday after getting home from the trip–so I must eat solids and more regularly. My bad eating habits catching up to me at long last, and I really need to focus on eating regularly and more healthy. (I lost twelve pounds in Kentucky.) It’s also achy and sore this morning, too, but not nearly as bad as it was yesterday. I’ll try to eat more today than I have the last few days.

I have some errands to run after work-at-home duties are completed today, which will probably suck the life right out of me. Running errands in New Orleans in the summertime is always a draining chore, but if I can get all of that done today I won’t have to leave the house at all until Monday morning when I go back to work. It doesn’t look too bad out there this morning, but a quick check of my phone tells me it’s 82, which is practically a cold spell for July down here.

We finished watching Red Rose last night, and what a ride that was. Intense suspense, wild out of nowhere plot twists, and all the young British actors were very appealing and good in their roles. I do recommend it; it’s a new trope for horror (maybe it’s already tired, I don’t know, but it’s my first experience of it) by using apps and your phone to terrorize you. It was also a terrifying commentary on how careless we all can be about our online security. Now, of course we have to start watching something new–often a challenge to decide–

I kept waking up a lot last night–pretty much every hour on the hour–and of course, was wide awake at six. I fed and watered Scooter, since he expects it at that time every day now, and went back to bed for a little while longer. I don’t know whether iI actually slept any more, but I don’t feel spacy-tired or loopy-tired this morning, so that’s something, I suppose. Hopefully it will turn out to be a most productive day for me. I do have laundry and lots of dishes and cleaning and straightening up around here to get done, too.

I joined Threads, the new Instagram version of Twitter, last night and I have to say, I like it so far. It was nice that your followers and who you follow from Instagram transferred over, and if any of those folks aren’t there, it will automatically follow them when they join and if they follow me, it will follow them automatically, too. That was kind of cool, and it was also kind of cool to go onto social media and not have bigotry and hatred shoved into my face every time I turn around. It also made me think about something else–Pride is more than just June, and why should I only write about my experiences as a gay male and as a gay male writer during that month? Firing off snarky tweets in response to bigotry is a nice little dopamine rush, but I also feel like I’m not doing enough to counter the rise of the Fascists; what better way for a writer to do that than write about it? There is an element of “preaching to the choir” to blogging about homophobia and bigotry, but if it changes one mind…then it was all worth it, was it not? I know there are people who think of me as one of the “good ones”–if you don’t know what that means, congratulations on your privilege–because I am, in person, usually very conciliatory and understanding (conflict-averse, and a trained counselor, remember) and because I generally don’t go on my old Julia Sugarbaker rants much anymore, if at all. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have them in my head anymore; barely a day passes without me seeing something, either on social media or in the news or both, that raises my blood pressure and makes me want to strangle someone. So, I am going to try to channel that anger and rage into something productive; blog posts. I don’t worry about offending potential readers of my books because all anyone ever has to do is look at my social media or even this blog to get a sense of my politics. I probably should have developed a public persona who is just charming and funny and apolitical, but that really just opens you up to more homophobia when you’re a gay man.

I can never decide if its worse for someone to be homophobic to me because it is so ingrained in them that they don’t ever realize it, or if it’s deliberate. I guess it depends on how you call out the homophobia and how they react to it. I do, however, generally always default to “doesn’t know any better” and correct them; I also don’t ever say someone is a homophobe unless I am 100% certain it was deliberate. I just say, “that’s a homophobic thing to say” or “that’s a homophobic comment” rather than saying “you’re a homophobe”–but if you continue to not do better, well, then you’re a homophobe. The thing that I never understand is how people react to things they don’t understand automatically with dislike bordering on hatred; it’s actually okay to not understand. I don’t completely understand every experience in the world, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be sympathetic, empathetic, and respectful. One of the wonderful side effects of my day job is that training and experience as a counselor, and recognizing that experiences should be met with respect and sympathy and empathy instead of judgment. Who am I to judge anyone? The only people I don’t respect and I will judge are racists, sexists, homophobes or transphobes; anyone who uses lies, deceptions, and stereotypes to categorize any one group as lesser and less worthy. I will judge you for judging others–and I will judge very harshly.

This weekend will be about tying up loose odds and ends, working on my page proofs, and trying to straighten up around here. I want to prune the books some more, and maybe even take another box down from the attic to go through. I also want to look through that box of clippings and other Greg memorabilia from my past career to see what can be kept, what can be scanned, and what can be tossed. I really want to get that attic cleaned out this year.

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

Throughout the Dark Months of April and May

Well, yesterday felt normal–as opposed to all the energy and the fabulous mood I was in on Monday, yesterday I felt more like the way I usually do on a midweek morning coming into the office. It was busy and we did have some odd and unusual issues, like we did on Monday, but it all worked out and I managed to get everything done and get out on time. I wasn’ tired when I got home, but there were men working on the house on our side of the building until about eight o’clock, playing (bizarre) music (choices) really loudly and of course, hammering and drilling and all those other power tool-esque things construction workers use. I’d intended to get some things done, but this successfully irritated me enough to make me lethargic. Then Scooter climbed into my lap and started purring and head-butting me and that was all it took; I was down for the evening. I did manage, however, to do a load of dishes so the evening wasn’t a complete waste. I feel more awake and alert and energetic this morning than I did yesterday, so that’s a step in the right direction, I think. Tomorrow I’ll be working from home, and trying to get caught up on the data entry and quality assurance stuff, as well as doing some yearly, on-line trainings about safety that are due (biohazard, fire prevention, HIPAA, etc.) so I’ll have a pretty full plate tomorrow, which is cool. I hope to spend some time with Megan Abbott’s Beware the Woman this weekend, and I also would like to get some more entries finished–I have a review of Carol Goodman’s marvelous The Seduction of Water to post, and I have more entries about my own books to write. and on and on and on.

We watched more of Red Rose on Netflix last night, and we’re really enjoying it. It’s a horror series about a deadly app teens have on their phones; it’s an interesting modern take on the horror trope of the haunted device, and a very clever use of cell phone technology to base a horror series on. We’ll probably finish it over the course of the weekend, we’re about halfway through with four more episodes to go.

I’m also getting better at figuring out where I am at in my life and getting a grasp on everything I am doing and what needs to be done going forward. I want to spend the rest of this month trying to get one of my in-progress manuscripts finished, or at the very least, a first draft finished. I also am going to start trying to pull together another short story collection, and I want to get these novellas finished and out of the way, too. I am also aware that is a far too ambitious plan for me; there’s no way I’d be able to get all that writing done in twenty-five days. I also have another Alabama book swirling around inside of my head; I keep thinking Beau Hackworth, Jake’s boyfriend in Bury Me in Shadows, deserves his own story and would be the best place for me to continue on with Corinth County tales; I have others in progress (two novellas, in fact, “Fireflies” and “A Holler Full of Kudzu”) and numerous short stories. I have one actually coming out in an anthology this fall, predicated around breaking the Father Brown rules for a mystery story–mine was “include a supernatural element,” natch–called “The Ditch” that I’m rather pleased with. I want to revise my old story “Whim of the Wind” again, too, because I think I’ve finally unlocked the key to solving the problem in the story (with a grateful not to Art Taylor, whose story “The Boy Detective and the Summer of 74”) but have never gotten around to actually, you know, making the changes to the story.

That story, “Whim of the Wind,” is uniquely special to me. After being told by my first creative writing professor that I would never be a published author and to “find another dream” sent me into a tailspin that resulted in my flunking out of college and putting off seriously pursuing writing as a vocation for over a decade (there were flashes of time when I’d put some effort into it, writing stories and so forth before giving it all up as pointless and impossible for me) I took creative writing again when I went to a junior college in California in an attempt to get my GPA up enough to allow me to re-enroll in the California State University system. We were allowed to take that class twice, so I took it in both fall and spring semesters. The first semester my stories were derivative and trying too hard, but the teacher was very encouraging, which I wasn’t used to, so I decided to take it again in the spring–he urged me to do so. One day in class we were talking about stories and structures and writing, and I just had this idea pop into my head and I started writing in my notebook. All throughout the rest of the class I kept writing, and I finished it when I got home that night. That story was “Whim of the Wind,” and not only did the teacher love it (he wrote on the first page, excellent, you should send this out which was a huge thrill for me. The class also loved it and didn’t critique it very much–there wasn’t anything negative anyone had to say about it. But the story was flawed; there was a strong flaw in its premise which inevitably always got the story kicked back from anywhere I may have submitted it; editors would even admit they loved the story but it was missing something–but no one has ever been able to tell me what the story needed…and please remember, what I turned in was a first draft, I’ve never rewritten the story because I didn’t know how–and it’s really one of those “kill your darlings” examples; I can’t change the opening paragraph because it’s poetic and beautifully written and…I can’t bring myself to make any changes to that, and I suspect that’s really what it needs. Maybe I’ll take another look at it this weekend.

I’ve also been going through my journals looking for things–ideas, story fragments, etc.–that I’ve forgotten about, and I must say there’s quite a lot of that. I’ve even started writing short stories in my journal that I never finished and they are just sitting there, minding their own business and waiting for me to remember them so I can finish them. It’s also interesting seeing what I write in those things, too–sometimes I just free-write, which is open it, take a pen and just start scribbling whatever pops into my head, which makes for a kind of interesting (to me) look at how my brain operates when free associating…I am sure some future psychoanalyst (or even current, for that matter) would look and see a need for medication if not multiple psychoses. I also free associate write when I am playing with ideas for stories or novels in progress, so that’s always interesting to see again later.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I will be back with you later.

Ella Megalast Burls Forever

Well, it’s the fifth and it’s back to the office with me this morning. It’s also Pay-the-Bills Day, woo-hoo! An oddly weird work week, the aftermath of a trip, and that weird stage of being beyond writing, if that makes any sense. I do have proofs to correct and other edits to come on something else, but I am not writing anything at the moment. I have some ideas I am toying with–a New Orleans ghost story, an Alabama book, among others–but for the moment I am just re-acclimated to myself and my world. I took yesterday off for the most part, and it was nice. I slept well again and felt good all day. I made holiday waffles for Paul, and I ate the Subway sandwich he’d purchased for me on Monday, I did some chores this morning while listening to the end of Carol Goodman’s marvelous The Seduction of Water (more on that later), and then Paul was up. I had thought about doing some work, getting started on the proofs or something, but once he was up I thought, we haven’t both had an entire day to ourselves in a long time so therefore, everything else could wait for another day.

We binged through a Paramount Plus show called School Spirits, which essentially is about a high school girl who is murdered, and her soul is trapped at the school with the spirits of other students throughout the school’s history who died there and cannot move on. She doesn’t remember how she was murdered or who had done it; there were gaps, and the other ghosts estimate that perhaps once she remembers everything she can then move on. It was cute enough, and entertaining enough, with some interesting twists here and there that it held our interest, and we watched all the way through until the season finale. We then moved on to the first two episodes of a horror series on Netflix, Red Rose, which was interesting and intriguing enough for us to continue, and decide to continue until we finish it. It was, all in all, a lovely relaxing day, and I am glad of it.

I also reread Daphne du Maurier’s “The Birds” yesterday. It’s really quite a wonderful and creepily intimate little story. I think it’s creepier and scarier than the film Hitchcock made of it–although the film is terrifying in an entirely different way. The story is very intimate and small–it focuses on a farmer trying to protect his family from the sudden turning of the birds, and how they have to fortify themselves in their house during the attacks, which in the story have to do with high tide. It’s really quite something, but du Maurier was such a master. I may write more about it later; the jury is still out on that.

I slept deeply and well last night, but didn’t wake up earlier than the alarm this morning nor am I awake and alive and ready to spring into action at work the way I was Monday morning. I don’t feel tired, I just don’t feel like I am fully awake just yet, which of course is fine. I do not regret taking yesterday off for myself; I am trying to not make myself crazy with that sort of thing anymore. No one can work at full capacity every day, after all, and there’s nothing wrong with me taking some time for myself and time off from everything every once in a while, to stop from going completely insane or at least wearing myself out. It’s much easier to take care of yourself, and I am trying to pay attention to my health on all fronts, including getting rest and not allowing my brain to get burned out. I think protecting my mental health, particularly since having the long COVID last year, is much more important now than it has ever been before in my life. I may not do a lot of thinking or writing this week, but there’s only two in-office days this week and a work-at-home Friday in my future, so maybe waiting until this weekend to do any of that sort of thing is perhaps for the best. I do want to start reading my new Megan Abbott novel; perhaps when I get home from work today I can use my writing time for reading.

Plus I need to figure out what I want to do next and come up with a plan of some sort for the next few years.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you tomorrow, if not later.

Fluffy Tufts

Tuesday morning and I have the day off for the holiday blog. Huzzah! Although it’s going to seriously fuck with my head once I return to work tomorrow. I love these short work weeks, quite frankly; but at the same time they inevitably disorient me and make me uncertain of both day and date. But I will survive and get through this.

Yesterday was a bit of a revelation. I slept deeply and well Sunday night for the first time since leaving for the trip (I did manage one good night’s sleep in Kentucky, but that’s another story involving a massive thunderstorm, a loud weather alert alarm in the other part of the house and a brief power outage) with the end result that returning to the office for the first time in over a week wasn’t an unpleasant experience. There were some things I had to get caught up because they’d slid while I was gone (I take care of so many little things that are nevertheless important that my co-workers don’t even realize need to be done), and of course it was a lame duck workday–wedged between a weekend and a holiday–so the energy was weird and and we had a lot of unexpected problems to handle for clients, which we did handle with aplomb, but I felt off-balance all day and the time just flew; next thing I knew it was time to pack up and leave for the day–but I never got tired. I usually am groggy and partially out of it all morning, and hit a wall in the middle of the afternoon, but yesterday I felt just as energetic and relaxed as I did when I got to the office at seven thirty yesterday morning. I had to run over to Midcity to pick up my PrEP prescription, then swung over to Uptown to get the mail (a check! a check!), stopped at CVS to pick up some Claritin-D and my Xanax prescription before heading down to Tchoupitoulas to make some groceries at Rouse’s. I also bought too much perishable food, as it my wont; I want to make watermelon soup today (because it’s cool and refreshing) and chicken salad…and I also want to make a bowl of salad. I was thinking about making Shrimp Creole for dinner–but again, hot. I also bought hamburgers to cook out; I’ll probably go ahead and do that anyway at some point this afternoon or in the early evening. (Paul got me a turkey sandwich from Subway for dinner that I’ll need to eat at some point today.)

I slept really well again last night, too. Paul and I finished watching The Suspect, which was interesting and disturbing at the same time, and then moved on to this week’s Platonic (which is hilarious; you should be watching this show) and finally to Deadline with James D’arcy, which is quite interesting. I stayed up later than I usually do–almost midnight–because I never felt tired, and yet once I went to bed I went into a deep sleep that lasted until around six, and then I was able to sleep again until seven thirty. I feel good today, too; rested and energetic and peaceful, which is nice. I honestly feel better than I have in months, for two days in a row now, which is lovely and marvelous. (I also have cut back on my caffeine the last two days…which also may have something to do with it.)

So, what are my big plans for this holiday? I have some chores to do, as always, and of course I need to rearrange the refrigerator from the Costco run on Sunday (Paul helped put things away, which I appreciated but…I am like my mother in that while I appreciate the help, it always means I’ll have to redo it at some point….it’s really frightening how like my mother I am), and I want to finish listening to Carol Goodman’s marvelous The Seduction of Water, which I have about an hour left on (I can do it while folding laundry and reorganizing and cleaning this morning), and then I want to get started on Megan Abbott’s Beware the Woman. Also, one of my Alfred Hitchcock Presents volumes purchased on eBay opens with Daphne du Maurier’s superb story “The Birds” (yes, the story Hitchcock’s film was based upon) so I’ve been rereading that lately. Du Maurier was such a master; I’ll probably talk about the story more once I’ve finished rereading. At some point Paul will get up and we’ll probably watch some movies this afternoon. I’ve really only been in the mood lately for true crime documentaries or comedies (we watched Dirty Grandpa before I left for the north; wrong on so many levels and yet hilarious) lately, and much as I am enjoying the new Tom Holland series on Apple TV (The Crowded Room), it’s been much too heavy for me to watch lately. We may get caught up on it today, who knows?

I also have an out of nowhere unexpected offer to write another book, which is also lovely. But it will be from scratch, unless I can find something else to repurpose. I’ll spend some time brainstorming that today, too.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader…I’ll probably be back later.

The World Turned Upside Down

Happy Second Class Citizen Independence Day, Constant Reader!

I am so tired of being Cassandra on the walls of Troy, warning people of the impending doom from the consequences of their narcissistic privilege, only to be either ignored or patted on the head condescendingly and told I don’t understand or am being terribly overdramatic. Well, too many of you didn’t listen and here we are.

But I am not going to talk about the fraud perpetrated on this country recently by six illegitimate and corrupt justices on the Supreme Court. This is the date designated as the nation’s birthday, and it’s a day of celebration as well as contemplation.

Despite its flaws and faults; its checkered history and immoral lapses in policy; and the current turmoil of bigotry and hatred and divisiveness, I still love my country. Despite the slanders and slurs hurled against people like me, I am a citizen just like anyone else in this country. I pay taxes like everyone else. There is nothing in the Constitution prohibiting my existence or my life or my reality; yet religious zealots, over and over again throughout our history, keep trying to seize control of the government in order to legislate their version of morality, theoretically based in their religion. I was raised in that religion, read the Bible and went to worship and prayed and Sunday school and all of that–as a child and without my consent. I know the Bible. I’ve read it, many times. I’ve studied it, read religious philosophy and religious studies. I’ve studied and read up on the history of Western civilization, which is forever yoked to the history of the rise of Christianity. I know when doctrine was decided as legitimate and what was heresy; what texts were left out of the Christian Bible and why; as well as the relationship of the New Testament and law to the Old. I’ve read up on the basic messages of many religions, from Islam to Hinduism to what most would call “voodoo” to the mythologies of ancient civilizations. The conclusion that I came to, from my reading and studying and so forth, was that the modern religions I considered all have, at their core, the same fundamental principle: be kind, be helpful, have empathy and compassion for others, and most importantly, do not judge. Judgment is reserved for God, however you choose to see him, and He is very jealous of that privilege. None of us are perfect and we are all sinners–but our sins are between us and God and are none of your fucking business.

Winston Churchill once said about the United States, “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing–once they’ve exhausted every other possibility.” It’s true. In his farewell address George Washington warned of our nation being dragged into “the broils of Europe” (which would make a great title), and that was the cornerstone of our foreign policy for generations. American soldiers did not fight a war in Europe until the first World War–and even then we only came in during the third year of the conflict. Likewise, we stayed out of the second World War, as the world erupted into flames, until we ourselves we attacked two years into the war, and the European allies of Japan also declared war on us. We have been participating in the broils of Europe ever since.

Those are realities. But our entrance into each war changed its course, and enabled the Allies to emerge triumphant. Defeating the Nazis is something we can be proud of, even as we essentially had an apartheid system of our own at home. Defeating the Japanese and putting an end to their war crimes is something we can also take pride in–even though there was a very strong element of revenge to the war–but using nuclear weapons on civilians to bring a close to the war is still morally and ethically questionable. (The horrific racism against the Japanese during the war was also abominable, and that’s doesn’t even take into consideration the horror of the unconstitutional incarceration of thousands of Japanese-Americans, while also robbing them of their belongings and destroying their businesses.)

But the ideals on which this country was founded–freedoms essentially from the potential tyranny of the Federal government–are very high-minded and noble. We have not lived up to those ideals too many times, and the fact that people who are straight, white, and cisgender have always been given priority over everyone who doesn’t fit into that demographic isn’t something we should be proud of–our system is flawed because human beings are flawed. Loving your country doesn’t mean turning a blind eye to its faults and problems, and critiquing and discussing moral, legal and ethical failures in our history, in my mind, is further proof that you do love the country and want it to live up to its ideals of equality and justice for everyone regardless of any adjectives that can be placed in front of the word American. My country has disappointed me, never more so than recently with a renegade Supreme Court discarding precedent, accepted law, and essentially pissing on the very idea of equality while pursuing what can be best be called a completely unAmerican agenda to undermine the basic principles of justice and liberty for all. Patriotism doesn’t require blind obedience and loyalty; which is why the Founding Fathers tried very hard to protect dissent.

I seriously doubt Benjamin Franklin or John Adams would ever agree that corporations are people, entitled to all legal protections of the individual while also not being held accountable legally than the individual; therefore the “citizenship” of corporations is also higher class than that of the individual.

But how can you not love and admire and respect the ideals the country strives to achieve? We haven’t always lived up to those ideals; many times we have failed, horribly.

I have always believed that the arc of justice always bends towards justice, and that we as a country can and should always be looking for ways to make things better, pass legislation to correct flaws and defects in the system, and always keep a wary eye out for corruption. The Founding Fathers also could not conceive of anyone making a career out of politics, either, which is why they established no term limits, which was a huge mistake. We have a presidential term limit now, but none for either house of Congress or the Supreme Court, or any federal bench for that matter. That was a major flaw and oversight in the drafting of our remarkable Constitution, with the end result we have a corrupt system where our politicians are often up for sale, and aren’t even ashamed. How does someone middle class or from a poor background go into politics and retire wealthy?

But, like Churchill, I have faith that my fellow Americans will always, inevitably, do the right thing–once every other possibility is explored and exhausted.

May you have a fabulous fourth of July, Constant Reader. I’ll probably make several posts today; who knows?