Category: health

If I Had a Boat

Christmas Eve!

It’s a bit foggy this morning, with the bright sun’s rays desperately trying to pierce through to light up the day. It’s also warm again this morning–New Orleans winter bipolarity striking once more–but I slept late, feel great, and am very relaxed this morning. I don’t really have a lot of plans for today; I’m going to do some chores (because there’s always chores) and I really want to not do much of anything tomorrow on Christmas. We decided to get the pizza on Friday for the weekend (along with a trip to Costco to get a new television), and I got a turkey breast to put in the slow cooker tomorrow for pulled turkey, so it will be sort of festive. I have some dishes and laundry to do today, too–no rush, and I can do them whenever. Paul has things to do outside the house, so I am going to have the afternoon alone here to read and do those chores and just chill. It’s going to be rather pleasant and relaxing, methinks. Huzzah!

I did stop and make groceries on my way home last night, which wasn’t as terrible as one might have expected for the night before Christmas Eve. I had the malaise again yesterday at the office, but I got everything done that needed to be done, and now I am current again with everything, which is absolutely lovely. This is an improvement, I must add; before whenever I’d have the malaise it struck everything; including the day job with me pushing everything back because…I don’t wanna. This new version of malaise doesn’t halt me from working at the office; it just affects my writing and editing and creating. I did feel somewhat tired when I got home last night, which is why I didn’t do any chores or anything, just collapsing into my easy chair to catch up on the news, bond with a needy Sparky, and chill out. I found myself watching reaction videos of hockey fans watching Heated Rivalry (which is really having a moment, isn’t it?), which was very fun. We also started watching Down Cemetery Road with Emma Thompson, which is quite excellent. (Ruth Wilson is also terrific in it.)

It’s also weird this week because I keep thinking today is Friday, just as I kept thinking yesterday was Thursday all day. My days and dates are going to be all fucked up now, and I’ll soon have to check to see what day of the week it is. It’s a little bit disorienting here and there, of course, but I plan to use these five days to get sorted; I’ve kind of felt scattered and disorganized all year (well, this entire decade), and I want to use this free time to do some writing, yes, but also to try to get a stronger grip on things. I also have to prepare for my year-end wrap-up as well as set goals for the new year. I don’t remember what my goals were for 2025, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say I didn’t accomplish any of them. I only wrote one book this year, and I think I published two or three short stories? I’ve sold one that will be in anthology that comes out next year, but that’s it.

What I really need is a thorough to-do list, and I bought a specific notebook (with Things I Need to Get Done But Probably Won’t on the cover) for to-do lists for 2026, which is a nice start to getting organized for the year, methinks. In fact, I think I’ll make my initial to-do list (for the rest of the year) at some point today. I may even start my rewatch of the Brendan Fraser Mummy movies this morning; one never knows. I was also thinking it might be nice to rewatch Gods and Monsters again….hmmm. There’s also the new Frankenstein to watch, too.

And on that pleasant note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a marvelous Christmas Eve, Constant Reader, no matter how you choose to spend it.

And I’ll be back tomorrow morning like presents under a tree.

Snapped one night walking around my gorgeous neighborhood!

Got My Name Changed Back

Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment, and all is well so far, at any rate. It’s cold this morning here in my workspace; but it will warm up during the day. I slept really well last night, and feel pretty good. Sparky got me up a little later than usual, and of course, the pile of blankets was enormously comfortable last night, too. I had the Oklahoma-Alabama game on last night while I did other things, and it was a decent game, from what I actually watched of it, with Alabama finally breaking whatever hold it was Oklahoma had over them these past two seasons and beating them. Good on you, Alabama. I imagine I will have the games on today while doing other things–after getting home from my errands that I need to do this morning. Yesterday was a good day; I got my work done and attended my meeting and worked on the apartment. I did a shit ton of laundry and cleaned the apartment thoroughly, even doing the living room floor. There’s some chores left for me to do in the kitchen, but it already looks so much better down here this morning! I also worked on the voice for Chlorine–which is crucial to getting to work on it, you know?

It’s always nice to have a lovely day, you know? It’s also super great to feel good without the exhaustion and fatigue, too. I think my dad and the doctor are 100% correct and the ulcerative colitis began in the summer off 2020, which is when the fatigue and exhaustion began, and the dehydration. It’s also nice to know that my bitter condemnations of myself as being lazy for not getting more done (which used to be the default setting) wasn’t actually laziness but a physical thing. I can’t remember feeling this good…so it’s been a hot minute, don’t you think?

One of the things I did yesterday was map out my essay series about my interest in Egypt and Egyptian things, and it was rather lengthy! I was trying to remember books about or set in Egypt (crime novels, mostly) that I read when I was a kid–I’m trying to remember the influences on me as a writer and how I got interested in certain things–and was amazed at how many there actually were, you know? And I am pretty certain I am not remembering everything, but the things I do remember are pretty clear and vivid in my head. I mean, Amelia Peabody is one of my favorite fictional characters of all time, so it would be very hard to forget a favorite character from a favorite author, wouldn’t it? I can’t really remember what triggered my interest in ancient Egypt; whether it was from the Encyclopedia or the movie Cleopatra, or even if it was one of those things. I just known I have had a lifelong interest in the art, architecture, and history of the ancient kingdom. (I also didn’t know how to pronounce pharaoh for years, pronouncing it “fair-ah-oh.”) I’ve also always wanted to write about Egypt; I’ve always been fascinated by Akhenaten and his religious revolution, and it’s aftermath–I also remember being endlessly interested in Tutankhamen. I know those Time/Life Great Ages of Man books triggered a lot of my imagination and interest in history.

I guess maybe I should have been an historian, and specialized in the sixteenth century. Oh, well. Coulda shoulda woulda never does anyone any good, does it?

If the weather is nice and lovely tomorrow, I think I am going to take a walk through the neighborhood with my phone, taking daytime pictures of Christmas decorations, and maybe on the night of Christmas Eve Eve, I’ll do it after I get home from work to capture them at night.

And on that note, I am going to go read for a bit before heading into the spice mines for the day. Have a great Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check back in with you again tomorrow.

The perspective on this shot is off, but in a kind of delightful way

Killin’ Time

And work-at-home Friday has rolled around again, and I have a lot to do. Nothing I am going to give myself stress over by any chance–nothing is worth stress, especially now that my anxiety is medicated and under control–but I feel pretty good this morning.

Sparky let me sleep a little later this morning, which was lovely. I didn’t sleep great–I woke up a lot, and was often in that halfway asleep halfway awake state. But I do feel good, so it must have been better sleep than I had thought. I need to make a plan for the weekend. I only have two days in the office next week, so am hopeful, very hopeful, that I will utilize that time well. I have a meeting this morning and a lot of Admin work to get done today, before I can return to the comfort of my easy chair and finish reading the Cain novel and a Shirley Jackson short story I saw mentioned on social media the other day. It’s also sunny and bright outside, with a potential high of sixty. It’s also going to keep getting warmer every day until we hit 80 on (sigh) Christmas. Yes, we’ll be running the air conditioning on Christmas. It is interesting, though, isn’t it, how we’ve all been trained to think of Christmas as cold with snow and ice….if the Jesus story is true, it don’t snow much in Israel, so that was a “tradition” that was added much later by Christians. Why shouldn’t it be warm on Christmas?

We started watching season two of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, based on the Rick Riordan series, and it’s very well done. The cast has also grown a bit since the first season, and look like high school kids now; the first season they looked like tweens. I also want to start some of the other shows that have been released that we’ve not started yet–like the Emma Thompson crime show (love her), or various other crime shows that have been uploaded to streaming services. I also want to start my holiday rewatch of The Mummy movies, to go with my essays on Egypt and the deep fascination I’ve had with the ancient civilization since I was a little boy–and the wonderful novels that fed it over the years. It’s also how I discovered the Amelia Peabody series by the magnificent Elizabeth Peters–I always picked up and examined books set in Egypt whenever I visited a bookstore. I was also a little disappointed that neither Nancy Drew nor the Hardy Boys ever visited Egypt or solved a mystery there. As you may have noticed, before December got underway I was alternating the traditional hot guy images for the blog with Egyptian scenes, and will probably go back to that after the new year and Twelfth Night, adding in Greek and Roman images before moving on, at some point, and then Mayan and scenes from European history.

Oh, and we have another episode of Heated Rivalry dropping tonight–I thought they came out on Wednesdays? Must have been wrong–and I also have to figure out the weekend and how I intend to have it play out; what errands to run, what groceries I need, etc. I know there are football games tomorrow, but don’t care terribly much about any of them, honestly, other than Tulane, my favorite long-shot team to make it to the finals. Indiana-Tulane would be amazing, wouldn’t it? Who would have ever thought either team would be in the play-offs, and I can assure two years ago had anyone predicted Indiana would be the number one seed, they would have been laughed at, or placed in a psychiatric hospital for observation.

The Vanity Fair fallout continues, and I was highly amused to see that their subscriptions spiked on the day they released the article and images on-line. I also love how the photographer (whom I hadn’t heard of before) doubled down with his responses to the criticism from the Right who claimed foul. Hey, no one made Karolyin’ Leavitt get the lip injection so close to the shoot, and you know they all thought the images would be filtered and photoshopped and airbrushed to make them look pretty and powerful and impressive…only to be shown exactly how they are: small, petty, cruel, and utterly banal. That close-up of Leavitt deserves a Pulitzer Prize.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. I know I’ve not been very interesting lately, but hopefully I’ll get more interesting as this dreadful year comes to a close, with no guarantee that next year will be better. Have a lovely Friday before Christmas, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow.

I really need to write a Christmas story about muscle-daddy Santa.

Turtles All The Way Down

Thursday and my last day in the office for the week. I also only have to work Monday and Tuesday of next week, so I pretty much have a rather lengthy vacation with a two-day work break. Yay! It’ll be nice to relax and recharge and hang out with the boys and make progress on everything, sleep as late as Sparky will let me…woo-hoo!

Yesterday was a busy day in the clinic–the afternoon, at any rate–but I stayed on top of most everything somehow. Today should be somewhat easier, and I can get caught up on the few things I am behind on (mostly Admin work, processing paperwork from yesterday) before the stay-at-home day and my weekend. I feel pretty good this morning (more sleep would be lovely, but isn’t necessary) and am in a pretty decent mood. I didn’t do a lot yesterday when I got home from work; I went uptown to get the mail after work, which was an adventure because I left the office late. Got some Christmas cards (apologies again, everyone) in the mail, and my Anthropic settlement information. I watched The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City–which was a rather silly episode, but quite fun. I caught up on the news, refused to watch whatever speech that was that aired last night (and from what I am seeing this morning, I didn’t miss anything; so to me at least, it seems like it was nothing more than a distraction from the Vanity Fair disaster and all the other disasters rooted in this administration1), and then did some light picking up and filing before going to bed. I feel rested and good, miraculous for a Thursday, and cannot believe Christmas is a week from today. It was dark when I went uptown last night, and on my way home from Uptown last night I saw a lot of decorated houses, which kind of made me feel Christmasy. We’re getting a new television from Costco as a Christmas gift to ourselves. I don’t feel like we really need a new one, honestly, but the one we have is over ten years old, and Paul has been hankering for a new television, for reasons unknown to me, for several months now. I bought our current one at Target on the West Bank as a Christmas gift for the apartment all those long years ago. I don’t really care about gifts anymore, which has been a conundrum these last years because we don’t really need anything, so we’ve kind of abandoned birthday and Christmas presents. We usually, for example, get Chinese food for our birthdays as a treat, or a pizza from a place that’s inconvenient to go to.

I am hoping to get a couple of newsletters done over the weekend and set to post over a week or so; I need to finish my essays on Laurie R. King’s O Jerusalem, The Princess Bride, and General Hospital, and I have a new essay series I am planning, about my lifelong obsession with all things ancient Egyptian; which will be a lot of fun to write, methinks2. I also need to finish reading The Postman Always Rings Twice, and start my next read over this weekend as well (it’s looking like a toss-up between a Dorothy B. Hughes classic and the latest Eli Cranor). There’s absolutely no reason I can’t get a lot of reading and writing done over the holiday break, as well as cleaning and organizing with plenty of time to be lazy and relax. Staycations are kind of nice, actually. I also don’t think the clinic is busy next week, either; but after New Year’s, YIKES.

I didn’t watch this week’s new episode of Heated Rivalry, but I did see that Netflix canceled Boots, in what can only be seen as a capitulation of the company to the Pentagon, because the Secretary of Alcoholism didn’t think it “properly depicted the Warrior Ethos of the military.” I’d like to see that drunk rapist adulterous piece of shit make it through Boot Camp, and based on every piece of video evidence I’ve seen, that piece of shit can’t even do a pull-up properly. Such a masculine stud! Netflix also wants to acquire Warner Brothers, so they’re dancing around the Administration’s whining bitch-ass complaints. Leavenworth is too good for this piece of shit’s war crimes, and I also think he should be turned over to the Hague. Anyway, I digressed away from the point (because that piece of shit makes my blood boil), which was that a co-worker asked me in the elevator the other morning if I “wrote m/m romance under a different name.” I was a bit taken aback at first, but I just replied no, but kept thinking about it the rest of the day, and it’s popped back into my head any number of times since then.

I’ve not written anything that could be strictly considered romance other than a couple of short stories here and there over the years. I don’t read much romance–my supervisor loaned me an m/m romance novel last year that I still haven’t read, but writing gay romance (or “m/m”, whatever; but there are distinctions) is something that has occurred to me over the years. I do have several ideas for them, but they’re more romantic stories than actually romance. It would be a challenge, I think, but I love challenges and pushing myself to try to write new things I’ve not done before. I do need to read more romances, though, in order to really write a good one. Ever since Charles (shout out to Charles Click!) mentioned this to me the other morning, a sports one has kind of started taking shape in my head–partly because I already wrote an erotic short story about an athlete (who wasn’t a wrestler, LOL) that could easily be adapted to a novel.

Something to think about, anyway. Maybe after Chlorine.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check back in with you again tomorrow! From my workspace at home between the windows!

  1. At least we’re not invading Venezuela…yet. Happy with what you voted for, MAGAts? ↩︎
  2. And it gives me the opportunity and excuse to watch The Mummy movies with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz again. ↩︎

Guitar Town

Monday and back to the office with me this morning. Huzzah? I have an Admin Day and my supervisor is out of the office until tomorrow. It’s also 32 degrees (!!!) this morning. My desk feels cold, and there’s definitely a chill here surrounded by windows. The apartment feels nice and toasty; we turned the heat on last evening as the temperature dropped. It kind of feels like Christmas now, you know? Warm weather at this time of year always seems wrong in some way. I did very little yesterday, and won’t apologize for simply falling into a spiral of not feeling like getting anything done for most of the day. I wasn’t tired; I just was kind of in a low-energy recharge state for most of the day. I did write some notes for the book, and started getting to the place where I feel like I finally have the narrator’s voice, and that was what was holding me back from getting started. I am hoping today to get some good background work done on it after work tonight, depending on how cold it’s going to feel on the way home and once I get here. I do have some chores to do tonight, too–which I should have done yesterday but alas, did not. No guilt, though, which is kind of a lovely feeling, and undoubtedly a result of the anxiety medication.

I do find myself thinking sometimes so this is what it feels like to be normal before realizing and remembering that there really isn’t a normal; everyone thinks they are normal because we only truly know our own experience, and our minds instinctively think that everyone is the same as us. I knew I wasn’t like everyone else very young, which was very unpleasant, and was absolutely terrified people would figure out I was different and it took years for me to reach a point where I didn’t much care about being different anymore and actually embraced it. I am also very literal and completely oblivious sometimes, which really bothers me…but being oblivious, I am not really aware of just how oblivious I am. I am oblivious about being oblivious, which is kind of weird.

But I did watch a lot of documentaries yesterday on Youtube; Paul’s not been feeling terribly well so he spent most of the weekend sleeping and resting, so I was pretty much on my own yesterday during the day. I watched one on the Hapsburgs (always fascinating to me), one on the Romanovs, and several other historical ones–a lot of legends and lore of the South and the Appalachians; and other tales of hauntings and murders. I was, of course, horrified about the latest round of mass shootings, and more than a little surprised that one wasn’t actually in the US but rather in Australia. Since the targets at Bondi Beach were Jewish-Australians celebrating Hanukkah, I can’t help but feel that anti-Semitism was at the root of this horror. All mass shootings are horrors, but these ones driven by bigotry and prejudice really bother me. There’s no justification for killing other than self-defense, and even then I am not certain how one lives with that sort of thing. The end result of bigotry and prejudice is inevitably violence; which is why hatred and hate speech is such an abomination.

Targeting people celebrating a religious holiday is especially egregious and evil, no matter what my views on religion are.

Sigh. But it’s Monday, and a new week and it’s back to the office with me in a bit. Christmas is next week, and once again, I failed to do Christmas cards and probably am just going to give up on that for the year. I do need to wrap a couple of presents, and I need to ship one to Dad, but does it really matter if it gets there before Christmas? Probably not.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back in the morning tomorrow.

All I can think is that he’s getting cold standing by the window in his underwear like this...although it could be a prompt for a Christmas crime story.

East Bound and Down

Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment and all is well and peaceful. I have fed His Majesty, Tuglas MacSparkle, and he went back upstairs to cuddle in bed with Paul. Yesterday was a very nice day; I got my work done, as well as a lot of chores. I had groceries delivered, picked up the mail, and then relaxed into my evening. We got caught up on South Park (oh my GOD1), Heated Rivalry, and finished Death by Lightning before moving on to the latest Knives Out movie, Wake Up Dead Man, which referenced the works of John Dickson Carr (whom I have not read). I also watched a documentary on the French House of Valois, which was very interesting. All were thoroughly enjoyable, too. These Benoit Blanc mystery movies are so much fun, so cleverly written and filmed, and there’s always some pithy commentary on a social issue–in this one, religion and power–which doesn’t hit you over the head with a sledgehammer, but are there if you’re paying attention. The acting is also fantastic; Daniel Craig is terrific as Benoit, and Josh O’Connor is terrific as the main suspect, a compassionate priest confronted with a toxic parish led by a toxic churchman. I also slept really well last night, too–and His Majesty let me sleep later than usual, which was also very nice. Thanks, Sparky!

I do enjoy being rested, you know? I also need to do some reading and things this morning while I do some more chores. I need to get the dishwasher unloaded, the floors done, and some other filing and so forth finished. I also need to work on writing, too. I want to finish The Postman Always Rings Twice reread; the month is almost half over and I’ve done so little for Noirmas that it’s kind of sad. Maybe I’ll rewatch something classic this morning, or after Paul goes off to his trainer; there’s no football today, after all. I think I have both In a Lonely Place and The Strange Love of Martha Ivers on the Hulu DVR; either of which would work. Or perhaps some 1980s neo-noir? You can never go wrong with Body Heat or Masquerade, after all, or some of those other unsettling films from the 1980s.

But I also have to decide whether I am going to do Christmas cards this weekend or not; next weekend would be too late, of course, and I have to send Dad his gift in the mail–which is more of a joke gift, but it should make him laugh, and that’s what matters.

I also want to start paring things down again. Another sweep through the books, a box from the attic, and straightening and reorganizing the pantry and my cabinets and the refrigerator. I also am going to be working on gathering my Chlorine notes, so I can review them all and start sketching out the story and figuring out my characters and who they are and making it slick and tight. Obviously, the first draft will not be done by the end of the year, which is what I was hoping for, but time has this nasty habit of slipping through my fingers lately. (And by lately, I mean the last twenty years.) I already feel like this morning is slipping away from me already, too. Those kinds of thoughts used to lead to anxiety spirals, and no, I do not miss those horrible spirals in the least. They were exhausting, really; anxiety spirals always led to adrenaline bursts which inevitably left me exhausted and worn out and tired to the bone; like driving to Kentucky. This last time was wonderful. I wasn’t in the least bit concerned about getting there as fast as I could, didn’t worry about losing time, and recognized that the time driving was actually out of my control–traffic is something I am, and always will be, at its mercy–and as such, no adrenaline spikes and no anxiousness and no utter exhaustion when I finally arrived. It’s nice to be able to relax and listen to a book as I drive through the deep South.

And on that note, I am going to get another cup of coffee, another piece of coffee cake, and repair to my easy chair to read for a moment before getting cleaned up and my day started. It does look really nice out there; perhaps today I can take a walk around the neighborhood? We’ll have to see. Anyway, it’s off to the spice mines with me for the day; may your day be whatever you wish it to be. I’ll be back again on the morrow.

Sexy, yes–but I can’t help but wonder if there are body parts in that bag for some reason.
  1. The fact that MAGA and Fox are pretending that the show isn’t viciously skewering this administration tells me that it’s definitely getting under their skin and scoring direct hits. ↩︎

You’ve Never Been This Far

Work at home Friday! I have to go to Quest this morning to get some bloodwork done (the joys of being an old gay in his sixties never stop, believe you me), but this is the last test for something new for awhile, and will determine whether I need additional treatment for something else… I don’t know, though. I feel pretty good and have energy and there’s not even a hint of brain fog anymore, which is kind of like having enough oxygen after breathing in smoke for years. I know that might sound extreme, but that’s how I look at it because that’s how it feels. I still have short term memory issues (i,e, going into the kitchen and forgetting why I went in there to begin with), but those are bearable and so much better than every other symptom of this nonsense I’ve been dealing with this decade. But, as I have said and will continue to say and believe, it’s so nice to know there was a medical issue to blame these past five-going-on-six years rather than it be from getting older and more frail and feeble. And, even with those issues, I managed to get things done anyway.

That’s something, isn’t it?

I did stop on the way home last night to make groceries, but forgot a few things (of course) so am going to have to go out this weekend to get those, or perhaps simply have them delivered. After I got home and Sparky commanded my attention while watching the news, I did get some laundry started, but that was about it. I went down some Youtube wormholes for research–I am writing an essay about US History, wrapped around the PBS series The American Revolution, with a shout out to Hamilton–which was a lot of fun. I do love me some history. I also am going to start writing my essays about powerful women of the sixteenth century, under the Monstrous Regiment of Women umbrella. I also scanned some notes from my journal for Chlorine, and I hope to get that finished today. There’s no college football this weekend, so Saturday yawns wide open and free.

I’ve already been to Quest to get the lab work done and have come home to finish this and do my work-at-home duties along with my other chores. I wasn’t gone more than thirty minutes, including driving and parking, which really isn’t bad. Of course, before the anxiety medicine I would have been sitting in the lobby, scrolling through my phone or reading my book or some combination of the two, while fidgeting the entire time. I left here just after eight and was back by eight forty, which isn’t terrible. Feeling good and better rested and losing the brain fog has made me really appreciate the anti-anxiety medication all the more, because there’s not that tension building inside all the time anymore, which is also very relaxing; not being tightly wound is quite marvelous, and I don’t know how I managed sixty years plus without said medication. Better late than never.

I saw yesterday that Liam Neeson did the narration for an antivax documentary singing the praises of RFK Jr, and the dangers of vaccines and the COVID hoax and so forth; welp, Mr. Neeson will never be watched in anything ever again in this household. It speaks a lot to who he is, doesn’t it? Either he’s a medical conspiracy moron, or he’s a whore who’ll take a paycheck no matter what he has to do for it. In either case, not someone whose career I have any interest in continuing to support any longer. (I also noted that Sydney Sweeney has also decided to distance herself from MAGA and her white supremacy antics–now that her career is taking and her films are bombing. Never forget that smug smirk on her face when she declined to comment on the controversy. She’s fucking trash. MAGA men just like your tits, bitch, they aren’t going to see your movies.) I also refuse to support any garbage actors who are getting Harry Potter paychecks in the future. You know who and what the Chatelaine of Castle TERF is; don’t plead fucking ignorance. You like blood money. Nice to know who’d be filming with Leni Reifenstahl in the 1930s.

I also saw the Supergirl trailer yesterday and really liked it. I’m sure the comic book incels will hate it, as they hate all women super-heroes. Seriously, little boys–why do powerful women trigger you so much?

Sigh.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a marvelous Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll see you again tomorrow morning.

Boulder to Birmingham

Thursday, and as always, my last day in the office this week. I was a bit tired yesterday after work, and so didn’t run an errand I’d planned, pushing it off till today–and I am not entirely certain I am not going to simply order things on-line and be done with it. I feel good this morning, but who knows how long that will last before I hit my Thursday wall? Last week, I wasn’t tired on Thursday when I got home; will I be lucky two weeks in a row? We’ll have to see. After I got home last night, I got into my easy chair and caught up on the news and The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, and was back watching news while I fell asleep in my easy chair. Paul had a board meeting last night, so Sparky and I were on our own, and he did NOT encourage me to get up and do things. Such a bad influence, really.

There was some interesting news here yesterday–a controversial Mardi Gras krewe’s founder was arrested. I shouldn’t mention this without knowing any of the details, but obviously as a New Orleans crime writer a bogus Mardi Gras krewe with an arrested founder could be very interesting. More on that later, as I am going to read up on the news reports about what is going on with this. I think it’s the Krewe of Mystic Kings, is/was going to roll on January 5th or 6th, and is something our city council president called a scam. Yeah, I am sure there’s a germ of a book in that story, don’t you? I have any number of Carnival crime stories I would love to write.

And where has December gone? How is it the eleventh already, with Christmas a mere two weeks from today? And New Year’s is three? 2025 hasn’t been the best of years, seriously, but I am not going to celebrate the end of a shitty year because inevitably the following year is even worse. Who knows what fresh horror awaits us in 2026? A depression and economic collapse, perhaps? Heavy heaving sigh. I suppose that also means if I don’t get my Christmas cards done this weekend they won’t get done. The suspense!

But I have some plans for the weekend, and I need to update my to-do list. I want to finish reading Postman, I need to write at least one newsletter, and I need to start some writing on Chlorine. I also need to outline it, do character studies, and build my Hollywood world of the 1950s and its gay underground. I also want to start taking boxes out of the attic and getting rid of more things. (As you can tell, I am now fully awake–thank you, coffee–and am raring to go.) It’s nice to be excited about writing again–it’s nice to be excited about life again, despite the world burning to the ground on the daily. It’s just so nice not to be tired all the time anymore, you know? Fatigue is absolutely real, and horrible to experience. I also have labs ordered for tomorrow morning, so I need to be up and at Quest at eight thirty tomorrow morning, which is fine. Right now, I have changed my mind and will make groceries on the way home tonight…but it will really depend on how I feel. I’m by myself in the clinic today and we’re pretty busy, so like yesterday, I may be drained and tired when I get off work. At least the grocery store is on the way home, you know?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a happy Thursday, Constant Reader, and remember–there are only fourteen shopping days left until Christmas!

The Good Stuff

Wednesday morning and how is everything with you, Constant Reader? I can’t complain, but I really didn’t want to get out of the comfort of the warm bed and my pile of blankets this morning. It was so nice and relaxing and comfortable! And when you have your sweet kitty check on you then curl up and cuddle and purr–yeah, who wouldn’t want to stay in bed? Yesterday was an okay day for the most part. I wasn’t tired, and I had help in the clinic, which I don’t today and tomorrow. Heavy sigh. But I’ll manage to power through. I am pretty caught up on my work and current on everything, so I just have to maintain that status through the end of the week. Sigh. It’s so nice to not be exhausted all the time, you know?

The interesting thing about ICE being here with their Gestapo-like tactics and antics is most of what they are doing is focused on the conservative suburbs outside of New Orleans, in Jefferson Parish–mostly in Kenner and Metairie, and they aren’t getting the kind of welcome they would have expected in MAGA territory. This irony–all the MAGAts and racists who were so absolutely delighted that New Orleans, that bastion of crime and danger to white people, was getting ICEd, only to have them focus on the so-called “safe” suburbs when they got here–is almost too delicious to bear. Of course, if people were posting about ICE in Metairie and Kenner, most Americans wouldn’t have a clue where they were talking about, so as always New Orleans is used as shorthand because everyone knows New Orleans (another bitter pill for the suburban racist trash to swallow).

As always, the quote is “Bitch, you live in Metairie.”

I was reminded yesterday that I wrote the introduction to two omnibus collections of gay crime writer’s first three novels, and the two authors were Michael Nava (!!! It was SUCH an honor!) and Michael Craft (both a delightful person and a delightful writer) way back in the early aughts; my first published essays, as it were. I’d completely forgotten about them, and the only reason I remembered was I got a google alert that a used copy of the Nava omnibus had been listed on The Strand’s website. I know I had a copy of each volume (at one point I had copies of all the Violet Classics, or whatever they called that series), because David Rosen at Insightoutbooks (which I miss to this day) sent them to me as a gift. My, that was a long time ago, and I got paid really well for those introductory essays. I was tempted to buy it, even to the point of getting my credit card out of my wallet and…just before I started the purchase process, thought better of it and closed the site. I don’t need to spend money on something I may already have a copy of; if I don’t have it or can’t find it, I can always go looking again for it on-line, of course, so long as I make a note to keep track and don’t forget about them, like I had for like at least fifteen years.

Sigh.

But my coffee is tasty this morning, the apartment is warm and comfortable, and today won’t be anything I can’t handle. I did do the dishes last night and ran the dishwasher before going up to bed, so I am almost caught up on chores other than, you know, keeping it clean as I go (ugh, McDonalds flashback), which will make the weekend easier. Yay! It makes such a difference not being tired every night when I get home from work. I still bond with Sparky when I get home from work (after feeding His Majesty) while I am catching up on the day’s news, but now I don’t get sucked in because I am so tired I don’t want to get back up…and I am motivated, which is even better, you know?

Last night we watched two more episodes of Death by Lightning, which I am enjoying. I love US History (history in general, really) and the murder of President Garfield was another one of those “what if” moments in American history; what kind of president would he have been, and how different would things have turned out had he not died and been succeeded by his vice president, Chester Arthur, is a question we’ll never know the answer to. The show is very well done and very well acted, and we now have just one more episode to finish it off, probably tonight. This period, and this assassination, have really been lost to time–who, outside of historians and history buffs–even remember that Garfield was president in the first place?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I will be back in the morning.

We haven‘t had a tree since Skittle died. Skittle would knock off an ornament and walk away. Scooter tried to climb it and eat the power cords. I shudder to think what Sparky would do to one.

Travelin’ Soldier

Today’s title is one of my all-time favorite songs, by the Chicks (remember them? Pre-MAGA canceled them for opposing the Iraq War–and shock! It turned out the Chicks were right all along). It was also the song that gave me the idea for my short story “Unsent,” which is one of my personal favorites of my own stories.

Two days past eighteen, he was waiting for the bus in his army greens…

It always makes me choke up a bit, and their harmonies are just angelic on this song. Natalie Maines is one of the best singers of my lifetime, bar none.

Well, yesterday was a nice day. The chili I made on Sunday (and I thought was kind of bland) actually turned out to be much better on the second day, who knew? That was a pleasant surprise for me yesterday, which was a very good day overall. I got a lot done at the office, am caught up on almost everything, and came home. I unloaded the dishwasher and folded the clothes, and straightened up the kitchen. I also did some filing, which was cool. I am wide awake this morning, too, having only hit snooze once. Unusual, and Sparky was thrilled that he didn’t have to wait the usual cycle of snooze before I got up. I’ve been feeling better every day, which is awesome. I’m going to have lab work done on Friday morning this week, too, and I need to get my Christmas cards done at some point (if I am actually going to shock everyone by sending cards this year). I did start marking things off on my to-do list, too, which was pretty awesome, frankly. Yay, me!

We are still getting warm weather this week, but it’s been moved to the weekend; Friday and Saturday it will be in the 70s, which will be a very good time for me to start taking walks again. I am serious about getting back into better physical condition (now that everything else seems to be finally clearing up), and as I mentioned before, I am thinking about starting back up at the gym again after Carnival. I don’t care about losing weight or building muscle or anything aesthetic-related; I am more concerned about building up my strength and stamina again. It’s so nice to feel good and not tired anymore, you know?

Or maybe I’m finally becoming a morning person? Perish the thought! But, it’s not a bad thing. It is very rare when I sleep in past eight here–gone are the days of sleeping till noon–but the rest I am getting now is much better than the last fourteen years or so. I also spent some time last night thinking about my new book project and am rather excited about it, to be perfectly honest. It’s been a hot minute since I started a new book project and wasn’t exhausted, sick, or recovering from something–I think the last one was Royal Street Reveillon, honestly–and so am kind of excited to see how this one goes, you know? There’s also an anthology I’d like to submit to, and the deadline is December 31st. It’s nice to feel excited about writing again, you know? (I’m also conveniently forgetting how hard writing actually is…) I also have some newsletters to finish, which should be fun, too. I have another couple of series of essays I want to do (along with the ones talking about masculinity and religion); Egypt and history and of course, juvenile series. This having a newsletter is a lot more fun than I ever thought it would be, you know?

Tonight after work I’ll head uptown to get the mail, and when I get home I need to do the dishes and reload the dishwasher. I may even vacuum tonight (madness) so this weekend won’t be so bad about keeping up with chores and cleaning. I’ll probably do some reading as well as my new project continues percolating in my head. I also need to answer some emails and need to get started on an editing project.

And on that cheery note, I am heading into the spice mines for now. Have a great Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning, I promise.

Such pretty eyes!