Category: health

Cry Wolf

Monday morning and back to the office this morning before the madness of the last lead-up to Mardi Gras begins. I have to leave the office early on both Wednesday and Thursday this week, before work-at-home Friday. I also took Lundi Gras off so I wouldn’t have to deal with insanity and can make groceries during the day before Orpheus. Today the low is in the fifties and the high in the seventies, so not terribly cold; here’s hoping it lasts through the weekend. I didn’t go out for any parades yesterday; I was much better yesterday than I was on Saturday, but was still a bit tired so thought it best to ice my ankles and spend the day relaxing rather than standing and jumping for throws. I did walk to Walgreens yesterday morning for a loaf of bread, around nine thirty or so, and it was already crazy and crowded out on the parade route. I did forget about the Super Bowl, so I missed the Bad Bunny show–but was very pleased to see what a ratings loser the Kid Rock alternative was when I got up this morning. Robert Kraft’s team losing was just icing on the cake, frankly.

I did watch the figure skating yesterday, and was very happy to see the US team clinch gold yesterday; I love that everyone who skated in the team event gets a gold medal. So fucking cool! The Japanese team, with the silver, skated so incredibly well, too, and good for Italy getting their home ice bronze. After watching the Olympics, we started watching the second season of Hijack with Idris Elba–and then switched to the Netflix documentary about the ice dancing for the Olympics, Glitter and Gold, which was actually really good. I didn’t know, for example, that the French team were Disney villains. I’d always been a fan of Guillaume Cizeron with his former partner, Gabrielle Papadakis–they were one of the best teams in the history of the sport, but I saw on-line there’s a lot more bad stuff about him and his new partner in the rest of the episodes, which we will watch tonight. That’s a shame, but I had him pegged as domineering and controlling from the very beginning–he just kind of has “bitchy perfectionist queen” written all over him. Pegged it! I do want the US team of Chock and Bates to win gold in the individual event–been a fan of theirs for well over a decade, and it would be nice for them to get another gold–I think they are our most successful ice dance team of all time.

One of the things that has been annoying me lately is it seems like every time I want to stream something on Youtube I am getting local state political ads, which were amusing at first but speak to the growing divide on the right. Our other useless senator, Bill Cassidy–the pro-life OBGYN–voted to impeach Emperor Palpatine after January 6th, which of course is an unforgivable sin to the Emperor…and Palpatine never forgets a slight. So, he anointed someone serving in the house for a replacement, Julia Letlow. I don’t know her, but the endorsement was all I needed to know she has a dark soul and is willing to cover for pedophiles, so yes, she’s garbage. But Senator Cassidy the Useless has decided he doesn’t want to give up his taxpayer funded job, so he is running ads attacking Palpatine’s choice as a LIBERAL who is a stock trader like PELOSI and she may have even voted for Biden’s policies a time or two! THE HORROR…which is hilarious. Like any elected Republican in Louisiana is a liberal? Hell, they aren’t even centrist Republicans!

On the other hand, a special election here in Iberville Parish for a suddenly opened state congressional seat–a district that was +12 for Palpatine went for a Democrat with a +23 margin, a 35 point swing….in Louisiana. If that isn’t sounding every alarm bell in the Nazi bunker I don’t know what will. I’ve always thought Louisiana was more of a swing state than a ruby-red state; we’re gerrymandered, of course, but we also had a very popular Democratic governor for eight years. The national party wrote us off after Mary Landrieu lost her seat to the very same pro-life OBGYN who’s trying to hang onto that seat after playing Judas to the right’s god/emperor. Good messaging and some actual work here could do the trick and swing the state left. I don’t know who is running for that senate seat on the Democratic side, but this could split the MAGA vote and give us a shot at–hope springs eternal, doesn’t it?

I’ve been listening to Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks a lot lately in the car, and it’s such a treat to hear that great old music again–which has never ever gotten really old. I still think Bella Donna is her best solo album, and Rumours, of course, is still their best album. There will be, methinks, some newsletters about their music as well as other music I listened to when growing up and how my musical tastes have grown over the years, and changed.

Tonight after work I have to go uptown to get the mail and make some groceries. Our postponed trip to Costco will occur tomorrow night after I get off work, and then it’s parades parades parades trapping me inside the route until Friday morning.

And on that note, I am going to have some breakfast and head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I will be back tomorrow morning!

Ghosts

Sunday morning. It’s yet another incredibly bright and sunny morning, and I slept late yet again this morning. Sparky let me sleep till past eight again this morning, and now I am up–a little bleary-eyed, but awake. I didn’t get a lot (anything) done yesterday, and who knows? I may not be able to today, either. There’s nothing wrong with being tired and taking a day of, as we all know, and my lack of anxiety in general is making it less necessary for me to make excuses for myself, or rationalize doing nothing. I mean, I cooked and everything, doesn’t that count? I broiled some chicken tenders to keep on hand and so I can make jambalaya at some point this week, and I also have the makings for some potato leek soup. I spent some time icing my Achilles tendons, which made them less achy and sore–they are a bit this morning, too, so will be icing them again this morning. My legs are bone-tired this morning too–they were yesterday, but this morning they don’t ache like they did yesterday. I really need to get going on building up my stamina again. As for today, I am not making plans. I have my lengthy to-do list, after all, and I do need to pick up some around here, too. If I read, I read; if I write, I write…but am not terribly worried about anything.

Better living through chemistry is so the way to go, Constant Reader.

I hear Sparky creeping around somewhere–which means he might be in attack/play mode; so I might be attacked at any moment. He really is the most adorable kitty, and it’s cute (if bloody and painful) when he goes into apex predator attack beast mode.

I was exhausted almost the entire day yesterday. I slept late, as I mentioned yesterday morning, but was physically worn down; the combination of walking so much when I am not used to it, plus the end of the week. After I posted yesterday morning, I took my coffee and a piece of king cake into the living room with me, determined to do some reading after I caught up on the latest insanities in the news. It pleased me to no end to see the Olympic crowd at the opening ceremonies cheering for our athletes as they walked into the stadium only to have the cheers turned to boos as Pseudonym and Wife appeared on the Jumbotron. Best get used to it, Vances–this is the rest of your miserable grifting fucking lives. Paul came down early to watch the figure skating with me, and we went from the Olympics to finishing His and Hers (a lot of fun, with a great surprise twist) and then this week’s The Beauty. (I was highly amused to see that Vincent D’onofrio was the “before” for Ashton Kutcher’s character; once the transformation was complete, Paul said, “why didn’t it give him an ass?”) I was very tired, and fell asleep in my chair for a couple of hours in the late afternoon/early evening, and then we watched Twinless, with Dylan O’Brien, which was really good but also very sad.

I am not as exhausted and tired as I was yesterday physically, but I might head out to the corner to watch King Arthur–which has lots of gay riders so I get a lot of stuff thrown at me–later this afternoon, depending on how I feel. I also have to walk over to Walgreens this morning to buy some bread and ice cream and chips or something to snack on; I am going to not worry about my weight until after Mardi Gras. I don’t know how cold it is outside, either–it’s very sunny, though–but I think I am going to ice my legs for awhile before I do anything.

And on that tedious note, I am heading into the living room to read while I ice my ankles. May your Sunday be a fun day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back in the morning before the sun rise.

The Nightmare

Saturday morning and there are a ridiculous amount of parades today out at the corner–Pontchartrain, Freret, Mars, and Choctaw during the day, followed by Sparta and Pygmalion, which is crazy–next Saturday there are only two. Nevertheless, I slept in this morning before an insistent cat demanded I get up and feed His Majesty just after eight, so I tumbled out of bed and stumbled to the kitchen to fix myself a cup of coffee. My legs are a bit achy this morning (more on that later), and I am also very physically tired. Mentally I am good–or what passes for it around here again–so I think this morning is going to be a “read in my chair under a blanket while resting” kind of morning. As for the parades today, well, it looks beautiful outside again this morning (yesterday was stunningly beautiful and got up into the 70s; today is supposed to be slightly cooler but yesterday was also not supposed to get that hot–we had to switch the air system from heat (it wasn’t on) to cool last evening; it was 78 degrees upstairs! I also wound up falling asleep in my easy chair, waking up just before midnight to head up to bed. I woke up feeling tired yesterday morning, and after running my chores–and dealing with Carnival traffic all over Uptown–I was done with everything. When Paul got home from the gym, I was like, we can go to Costco Tuesday night after work and he agreed.

I did watch some of the Olympic figure skating yesterday (the crowd booing the Vances at the opening ceremonies needs to be done as a reel so it can be replayed over and over again–it’s not just Americans that hate them, and it’s always lovely for them to be reminded they are pariahs all over the world), which was lovely. The men’s team short program is today, as is the ice dance final. I do love the Olympics, and I am glad that the fans in attendance–at least thus far–are showing respect and love to our athletes while despising our leadership. If only most Americans were capable of that sort of discernment…

I walked to dinner with a friend last night, which is why my legs are achy this morning–they aren’t used to that much exercise and are complaining about it to me today. I got my marvelous ice machine down from the attic yesterday and used it on the Achilles tendons, which helped tremendously. I also changed the inserts in my shoes, so the walking wasn’t as bad as I feared it would be. We met at Pesche, in the CBD on the corner of Julia and Magazine–and walked back up Magazine to Terpsichore before cutting over to Coliseum Square and then home. I had not been to Pesche before–I’ve driven past any number of times–and highly recommend. I had the hushpuppies, an interesting dirty martini with both vodka AND gin in it, with a sprig of dill; called a “Mother of Pearl,” and ground shrimp with noodles, which was insanely delicious–imagine flat noodles covered in a red sauce with shrimp ground up like hamburger in it. I need to figure out how to make that at home, frankly, because it was fucking amazing. I was pretty tired physically by the time I was slipping my key into the gate while a marching band passed at the corner–one of those Carnival season things that always makes me smile. It is inconvenient but I do love parade season and living inside the box. Despite the aggravation of all the traffic and stupidity that went along with it as I drove around, I did kind of get a kick out of seeing people driving around with their Carnival colored ladders in back, or watching people set up their viewing spaces along the Avenue and along Napoleon, too. There really is no resisting Carnival, no matter how much you try, unless you literally leave town for it all.

And this is just the warm-up. Everything kicks into gear this coming Wednesday night.

And on that brief note, I am getting another cup of coffee, a slice of King cake, and heading for my easy chair and the ice machine. Have a marvelous Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning.

Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You?

Tonight, Oshun and Cleopatra roll down St. Charles Avenue to kick off the Uptown parade season, and I will be trapped in my neighborhood tonight through Sunday night. Next week is the true insanity, beginning on Wednesday and going for almost a week. Yay for Carnival! I have a shit ton of things to do today, personally and professionally, so it’s going to be an interesting all-over-the-place kind of day. I’m meeting a friend for dinner at five fifteen, and will have to walk about six blocks to get there, but that’s not a big deal so long as my Achilles tendons don’t get out of control. I just need to keep my wits about me today, not get distracted, and keep nose affixed firmly to grindstone or else the day will go completely off the rails–which nobody wants or needs. I also have a meeting this morning and lots of work-at-home duties to get done today. AUGH. A busy busy day for me, and not off to a good start, as I didn’t get up early but lolled in bed late.

It didn’t rain on Wednesday night, so I didn’t feel as deeply rested yesterday morning as I had Wednesday morning. Maybe I should get one of those rain sound machines to sleep with? I don’t know if the noise will be as effective with the chilly wet air, though. I used to have easy listening CD’s a hundred years ago–morning rain, forest, waterfall, etc.–but don’t think I ever used them. It also didn’t rain last night, either–and the sun is very bright this morning. It’s about forty-eight degrees outside, which isn’t terrible. I am not certain if I’ll go out to the corner tonight or not–will depend, actually, on how tired I am when I get home from dinner. But for now, I just had some toast and finished my first cup of coffee and am feeling pretty good–so we’ll see how it all goes, won’t we?

Maybe the saddest thing that happened this week was the death knell of a once-great urban newspaper, the Washington Post. Nowhere in anything I read about this latest butchering of the paper did anyone note that there was a lot of backlash to the Post after Jeff Bezos cancelled the paper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris because his fellow pedophile and favored candidate wouldn’t like it. I recently subscribed to the Post–despite my disapproval of them, it was a good deal and they had book coverage, sports coverage, and recipes–and got a great deal at ninety-nine cents per month for digital access, so I figured a dollar wasn’t much to give them, and would cancel when that rate lapsed and went back to normal. It sure didn’t take long for them to make my dollar a waste of money, did they? I also didn’t see anyone else drawing a line from Watergate to right-wing hatred of the Post and this final vengeance for taking down Nixon. (Likewise, they’ve also managed to neuter the New York Times and CBS; the Times reported on the Pentagon Papers, and CBS opposed Vietnam. Conservatives are nothing if not vengeful and vindictive, and can carry a grudge for a very long time.) I had misgivings when Bezos bought the Post, but it took him ten years to take an Elon Musk-like chainsaw to the Post. He’s a monster. I wonder how many kids he raped on Epstein Island? You know he was there.

I think the funniest thing to be about all of this is that the Chatelaine of Castle TERF is in the files. That’s right, that bigoted old bitch who “wants to protect girls and women” is in the Epstein files and was buddy-buddy with him. I knew her fascination with the genitals of children had a much darker origin. Maybe she hates trans kids because she wants to know what genitals they have without checking before molesting them? Yeah, she wraps her bigotry in piety but when you’re friends with the biggest pedophile and sex-trafficker on the planet? Miss me with your concerns about women and children, bitch. The irony that she happily climbed in bed with the Christofascists who’d tried to get her “satanic” books banned and removed from libraries is equally delicious. She jumped into bed with the actual pedophiles and hung around with Epstein. So much for any moral authority she tries to claim. She hates queer people and loves pedophiles. Quite frankly, she deserves worse.

It’s easy to see why religions like Christianity have taken hold–because its basic message is one of elitism and exclusion: we’re going to heaven. Plus, there is nothing fair in this world and there is rarely any justice, so how do the rich and powerful keep the poor and the working class from revolting and guillotining them all? Give them a religion that promises every gets what they deserve in the next world with no proof! It’s easy to see why faith became so popular in the old days–don’t worry about no justice on earth–they’ll get it after they die is some impressive gaslighting, maybe the greatest example of it in history. There was a reason the French Revolution didn’t target ust the upper class–they also targeted the Catholic Church and abolished religion (which often gets left out of the lesson). The promise of the afterlife enables the rich and the powerful to do whatever they please, no matter how heinous, because well, God will send them to hell.

The Olympics have already started, and some of the team figure skating competition has begun, with a good showing by the US team so far, which is very cool. I don’t know how much of the Olympics I’ll be able to actually watch–there are two parades tonight, six tomorrow, and three or four on Sunday. I have to run errands this afternoon so I can get them out of the way because I won’t be able to do much driving after four tonight until Sunday night/Monday morning.

I actually worked on my dystopian story yesterday and it started flowing easily–probably because it isn’t hard to imagine an American dystopia in the near future. But it also felt good to be writing again, and that’s always a good thing. Hopefully I’ll be able to get it finished this weekend.

And speaking of the Epstein files, someone gathered the Epstein emails as an easily searchable Gmail inbox. Just click and you can see if your favorite oligarch or celebrity is there!

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

Seriously, no one does parade floats quite like New Orleans krewes.

No Spoken Word

Thursday, and Parades’ Eve! The fencing and bleachers are up all along St. Charles Avenue, and last night I got to drive the slalom course they turn the Avenue into ever since the terrorist attack onNew Year’s last year. Tomorrow there are two parades, there are six or seven on Saturday, and I think three on Sunday. This is the warm-up weekend before the big final weekend, so we’ll see how it goes. I have to run a bunch of errands tomorrow, too–once my work-from-home duties are completed. I don’t know how productive I am going to be, either. I don’t know that I have the stamina to be out there as much as I could be, either. We shall see. It’s also in the thirties again this morning–it got up in the seventies yesterday, which was weird–and I could feel the floor getting colder last evening through my house shoes. I think the parade weather is going to be in the fifties/sixties, but sunny. We shall see, and we shall also see if my Achilles tendons can handle it just yet–they still are sore and achy. Note to self: look up what to do with sore Achilles tendons.

I wasn’t terribly tired when I got home last night. I was able to fold laundry, do a load of dishes and put them away, and reload the dishwasher to run tonight when I go to bed. The kitchen is in much better condition than it usually is on Thursday morning, so I am not going to have to spend time over the weekend catching up on all those things. We watched another His and Hers (we’ll probably finish it tonight, as there are only two episodes left. There’s also another episode of The Beauty, which I am hate-watching. Paul doesn’t care about that show anymore, so I’ll probably watch it while I am relaxing into my easy chair and bonding with my Sparky. We still haven’t watched the final season of Stranger Things, or the new season of Bridgerton, either. We’re also in the midst of the final countdown to the festivals, the Olympics are starting, parade season, and AUGH. I need to stop procrastinating, don’t I? MY to-do list keeps growing, but very little ever seems to come off of it–which would have led to a complete breakdown before anxiety medication.

Better living through chemistry is definitely a thing I embrace whole-heartedly.

Neil Gaiman tried to come back to social media in light of the Epstein horrors, and I am not really sure what he was thinking. I believe he was driven off social media yet again, but this led to some serious conversations about other author/predators, which led to me discovering precisely why Marion Zimmer Bradley had been canceled, and I might add, ew. I knew it was something bad but I never paid much attention; I’d never read anything of hers other than The Catch Trap, her gay circus romance between aerialists, which…I had some issues with. I have my original copy of it around here somewhere, because I’d always meant to go back and read it again. Overall, I’d enjoyed it, but there was something terribly off about it to me, that kind of made me uneasy as I read it. I also knew that her Arthurian novels were very popular with women, because she told the story through the point of view of the women; but I loved Mary Stewart’s Arthurian novels so much I didn’t think I would enjoy the Bradley novels–and would always be comparing them unfavorably, and there are lots of other things to read, you know. Now, I’m glad I never did, and a critical reread of The Catch Trap knowing what Bradley and her evil husband were doing to their own children will color it. It also makes some of the stuff that didn’t sit right with me in the book make a lot more sense to me now. Anyway, thank you, Karin Kallmaker, for letting me know.

Okay, I looked up the Achilles tendon stuff and the recommendations are rest, ice, and stretching, which means getting my ice machine down from the attic tonight, and we shall see how that will go.

And on that note, y’all, I think I am going to head into the spice mines. Enjoy your day, Constant Reader, and I will be back tomorrow morning.

So pretty!

Talk to Me

Monday morning and it’s still cold. Go figure. Parades start this very Friday, and if it’s cold, well, I won’t be bold. I am not going out there to get sick from being out in the cold, and besides, I’m old. Maybe it’s all that history I read where someone old caught a chill that developed into pneumonia and death within days. As much as I joke about it, I am not in any rush to leap into my grave (or the crematorium, as it were). I just don’t like being sick–and last spring I was sick enough to last me for a lifetime, thank you very much. I am about ready for this cold to take a serious hike. Although apparently tomorrow’s high is going to be seventy? But then it gets cold again for the rest of the week, but not nearly as bad as this weekend and today are going to be. Layers, layers, layers.

Yesterday morning was disrupted by the power outage. It was only out for an hour, but it was enough to disrupt the day and throw it off track. I did read in bed under my blankets with my coffee until the power came back on, which was lovely. After which, I went downstairs and read while watching the news. I was pleased that Carlos Alcaraz won the Australian Open (I am no longer a fan of anti-vaxxer Novak Djokovic). After Paul got up we finished The Night Manager before moving on to His and Hers, which is interesting so far. I do enjoy Jon Bernthal, so there’s always that. (I didn’t like his take on American Gigolo, which could have been really great, but we didn’t finish.) I didn’t get a lot of anything done yesterday, overall, but I did get some chores done and the house won’t take much to look orderly. We’ll see how I feel when I get home. I have to make groceries on the way, but that’s not a big deal. I have some dishes to do and such, but other than that and straightening out the kitchen rugs, I think I am pretty caught up on the house? There’s no laundry left to do, the dishwasher is empty and ready to be loaded, so once I put away the groceries, I can do that.

The news, for the most part, has been good lately–or at least, better than it has been. This weekend’s Epstein reveals were staggering, and are only going to continue to get worse and worse. Murder? Rape? Torture? Cannibalism? How nice that our modern elites looked at Caligula’s court and said “hold my beer”, right? I mean, we’re still living under a fascist government, so the news can only be so good, you know? Minneapolis is still under siege, the Supreme Court continues to be a joke on the regular, and day by day the trash that voted for him to “own the libs” are slowly peeling away from him because the hellish policies of the mad king are affecting them, too–which “isn’t what they voted for.” Aw, shucks, sugar, we warned you and you mocked us–and while I am pragmatic enough to understand we need them to turn on all of this and vote it out; but that doesn’t mean I am forgiving anyone. Even those of us who voted for the lady with the weird laugh own this, too–because we’re Americans, and we could have done more to stop this. None of us get to say we aren’t responsible for this because it is our government, we’ve allowed this all to happen, and now we all have to come together to rebuilt it all back together and clean up this fucking mess.

That was part of the reason I wanted to watch Judgment at Nuremberg again–we haven’t finished, we only got about forty minutes into it–because of the entire notion of societal responsibility and guilt. After the war, the common German people–who’d seig heil‘ed and gone to the rallies and threw flowers and cheered the military parades–weren’t allowed to look away from their government had done in their name. The question of “true believer” or “too afraid to say anything” is something that can never really be answered. I was born sixteen years after the war ended in a neighborhood filled with war and post-war refugees from eastern Europe. I was shown the military films of the freeing of the camps in elementary school. I learned very young that fascism and Nazism were both evil. My childhood and teens were filled with stories of the MOSSAD tracking down Nazi war criminals, all over the world. There was a lot of World War II historical fiction out there, too, and even more fiction about Nazism rising again out of the ashes of history–William Goldman’s Marathon Man, for one, and Ira Levin’s brilliant The Boys from Brazil–and I did see Judgment at Nuremberg in my teens, which got me interested in the day-to-day German people, how the scourge rose to power, and what they lived through and experienced. We were taught that Nazis and fascism and antisemitism were societal evils…and that we Americans, with our freedoms and our democratic republic, were morally superior. (We were not–and in our American arrogance we also believed that such a thing could happen here.) Now we are in a situation (again) where our government has turned us into a rogue, authoritarian wannabe dictatorship–just as the Roman republic declined into an autocracy. Don’t blame us! we post on social media in response to foreign scolding, we didn’t vote for this!

How does that make us any better than the former supporters saying this now? The American penchant for dodging responsibility is perhaps our worst, most narcissistic, societal and cultural flaw.

And on that somber note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and try to stay warm if you can.

The dragon float arrives at the Orpheus Ball

Sable on Blond

And now it’s another abominably cold Sunday morning, and its back to the office with me again tomorrow.

Sparky was hungry so I got up around six, staggered downstairs and fed him before heading back up to the warm nest of blankets in my oh-so-comfortable bed. I woke up again at seven, went back to sleep, and when I woke up again, the power was out. I gave Sparky some treats, got my book, and went back up to bed–no power, no need to be out of bed, right? I read a few chapters of The Secret of Hangman’s Inn, a reread of an old Ken Holt mystery for kids1 before the power came back on, and I did have some thoughts–about how danger is real in these series, and yet–but it can wait until I finish. The kitchen is still very cold this morning–I am going to have to get a space heater down from the attic this morning because it is so fucking cold in the kitchen/workspace.

That’s the lengthy explanation of why this is being written and posted so much later in the morning than I usually do–my daily routine was disrupted and I am trying to recalibrate my discombobulation and turn it into something productive. The house is kind of messy; I didn’t really do as much cleaning yesterday because of the cold and used that as my excuse to not do much of anything, really. I was busy watching Youtube videos about Melania and enjoying numerous cruel laughs at her expense. Iy wasn’t the best week for the treasonous MAGA trash, was it? May it continue to get worse and worse by the week, day, hour and minute. As for the “I didn’t vote for this” assholes, yes, you fucking did. Every single one of you is an accomplice before the fact to everything that has happened since 1/20/25. We warned you, over and over, and you laughed in our faces and said fuck your feelings.

Which is exactly how I feel now. Fuck your feelings, You voted for this, stop whining and live with your fucking decision. You want absolution for destroying the country? Drink fucking bleach, or get to work fixing this mess, shut the fuck up unless you’re doing the actual work, and fucking bite your tongue whenever you feel like fucking whining again. They’re coming for Obergefell, just like we all said they would.

Oh, the Melania documentary? I’ll wait for the one from Dateline, thanks.

Apparently we are also in a boil water advisory, because a water main in Uptown–in either Riverbend or the Black Pearl, they didn’t say the neighborhood only the streets, and I am not confident about my neighborhood boundaries anymore, since realtors seem to invent new neighborhoods and change the boundaries on a daily basis. I have plenty of water on hand–thank you, Britta pitchers I always keep full–but in all honesty, I am surprised there weren’t more, given how cold it was, in all honesty. Our infrastructure is all so old and crumbling it’s a wonder the city functions at all.

We started rewatching Judgment at Nuremberg last night–can’t imagine why–after getting caught up on The Night Manager–and I actually went to bed early. All this extra sleep and my daily routine being disrupted has been kind of an interesting departure from normality. I should probably consult my to-do notebook, shouldn’t I, as I head into the spice mines this morning? Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back in the morning again before I head to the spice mines tomorrow.

  1. The Ken Holt series is one of, if not the, best kids’ mystery series. Part of tmy reason for this reread is to write an essay for the newsletter about Ken Holt and why it was such a favorite of mine. ↩︎

I Can’t Wait

Work-at-home Friday, and all through the Lost Apartment only Sparky and I are stirring. He’s scarfing down his breakfast as I type, while sipping my coffee. The extreme cold weather forecast has now been extended through Sunday at noon. Heavy sigh. It could at least snow! Somehow, the magic of snow in New Orleans last year made me forget about how cold it was…I still can’t get over how beautiful the city looked buried in snow. I slept really well last night, and feel pretty good this morning. I hope to get a lot done this weekend, but–no big deal if I don’t. I have my biweekly team meeting at ten this morning, and some admin work to get done before I call it a day. I was thinking I might take a break and do some errands, but I may let that slide until tomorrow; I do have to go uptown at some point this weekend, but maybe not today. I’ll see how I feel. I do want to get finished with reading my books this weekend, and I do want to spend some time organizing my writing and figuring out what to do with these short stories and calls for submissions. I also want to prune the books and make progress on my to-do list.

I bought a notebook with Things I need to get done but probably won’t on the cover, and I am using it as a running to-do list. Yes, this is kind of inspired by Donna Andrews1‘ marvelous Meg Langslow characters “notebook-that-tells-me-when-to-breathe,” and I kind of like it. You cross things off but keeping adding to it. I always numbered those lists when I made them, and am still doing that, but need to break the habit because it’ll eventually be in the hundreds, won’t it? How daunting would that be? “I just crossed number 435 off my to-do list!” I mean, yikes.

It’s hard to believe that a week from today the parades start and madness descends upon the city, but it’s a joyous kind of madness. I hate the logistics of life during the season–finding a place to park, having to be strategic about making groceries, having to leave work early, the noise down at the corner when I go to bed early…but I have Lundi Gras off, so that morning I can make a grocery run and get back before the streets close again. I also don’t have the stamina for standing outside for hours yet, so I will probably got a bit worn down again. At least this year I am not going into it full of depredation before finally giving into it–you can’t beat it, after all, so you might as well not resist and just dive-in head first.

And the bead trees of St. Charles will be blooming again soon.

Yesterday was a busy day at the clinic–almost everyone showed up, so I saw quite a few patients–but despite that I was able to stay caught-up on my “at the office” admin work. I came straight home from work, came inside the house and unloaded, fed Sparky, and started working on the laundry and some other chores. By the time Paul got home, I had done quite a bit around here, including organizing files. I do have more chores to get done today–the never-ending cycle of laundry is quite remarkable–but I need to reattach the dryer hose to the vent, which came loose this past week. I can still run the dryer but the heat stays in the room, and…there’s stuff on the pantry shelves that moist heat can wreck, so I need to pull the dryer out and reattach the hose. I just need to take everything off that bottom shelf and remove it temporarily so I can get back there–which is why I’ve not already done it. It’ll also help me with my reorganize the pantry shelves project. Paul got home late, and we watched this week’s The Beauty, which is insane but highly watchable (more on that later) and we also watched some of the Australian Open. The Olympics open that first parade weekend, too. #madness

And on that note, I think I am going to get cleaned up and started on my day. Thanks as always for stopping by, Constant Reader, and I hope you’re safe, snug and warm during this Arctic blast cold spell. I’ll be back in the morning, so see you then!

The bead trees will start blooming one week from today!

Sister Honey

Thursday and my last day in the office for the week, and my last free weekend before parades. It’s so weird to think that parades are starting next weekend. Holy shit, right? But a week from tomorrow is the first night of parades, with Alla and Cleopatra, with six on Saturday and three on Sunday before all the true madness really begins the following week. I hope the weather is nice for the parades this year, since this is the first time in years I’m actually feeling like I can enjoy them this season. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to stand at the corner, but I always seem to forget being old and tired when I am out there and the throws are a-flyin’. I also forget about it being damp and cold, too. Paul and I stood out in the rain one night for Orpheus and had the best time. I slept really well and actually woke up around five, to nap on and off until Sparky became determined to get me up for a feeding. Since I did go to the bathroom when I woke up at five, I saw that he was curled up at my feet in the bed–and when I came back, he cuddled up to my calves. Such a sweet, adorable baby…until he started nipping my fingers so I would get up to feed him.

After I ran my errands in the bitter cold on my way home from work, I came home and just collapsed into my easy chair. Sparky curled up in my lap (after being fed, of course) while I caught up on the day’s horrors–er, news–before turning to the final episode of the finale for Real Housewives of Salt Lake City’s reunion. I’m not really sure there’s any point to these reunions/rehashings of the season–it just gives them all a chance to yell at each other all over again, with a noncommittal resolution that’s seems required by that smug expired twinkie Andy Cohen (at some point I will do a newsletter about the Housewives shows).

The amount of virality that continues with Heated Rivalry and its stars continues to astound and amaze me. It does also please me; I’ve become rather entranced with them myself and feel almost paternally protective of them. I watch reels and videos about them and their journey to international stardom. They all have such adorable personalities, and are all so humble about all this sudden success and fame…and it’s just kind of fun to see, you know?1 And who doesn’t love a rags to riches story? It also amazes me how different Connor Storrie is from the character he played–and I don’t just mean the acting. He looks different. Similar, but different. As Ilya, he doesn’t really use his very expressive face the way he does as himself; so much so that he doesn’t seem like the same person. I feel like physical actors don’t get as much credit as they deserve; I always think of that scene in Superman where Christopher Reeve changes from Clark Kent into Superman but only in posture and physically, and it was extraordinary; he never got the credit he deserved for his acting talent.

Yesterday was an odd one, energy-wise. I wasn’t tired, and I ran my errands on the way home, coming straight home tonight with no stops, might have things delivered if I need anything over the weekend. We had a lot of no-shows yesterday–I think I wound up only seeing two or three people total–so I found myself catching up on a lot of other work that doesn’t involve seeing clients. We’re scheduled heavier than yesterday and I am alone in the clinic yet again…and I have some other things I need to get done today around clients. I feel pretty good this morning, though, and like I’ll be able to get everything under control today. Tonight when I get home I have some chores to do once His Majesty has been fed and gotten enough attention, and then I think I’ll probably catch up on the news before watching this week’s The Beauty. We’re also a bit behind on The Night Manager, too. And of course the Australian Open is on, and the Olympics are also coming up…during parade season!

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

  1. I’m still bitter about Boots being canceled. ↩︎

Rock a Little

Monday morning and it’s back to the spice mines with me this morning. There are worse things I could do, one supposes. The cold has arrived; it’s only 29 outside and I can absolutely tell as I swill coffee and shiver a bit here at my home workspace. Sparky has been glued to me since I got up–although why he isn’t cuddled up with Paul in the bed is indeed a mystery to me; that’s where I’d be if the alarm hadn’t gone off and I could have slept another few hours, comfy and cozy and warm under my pile of blankets. But I am awake, it’s not terribly cold inside (it could be worse) and we didn’t lose power, which is a big plus. That was my primary concern–the loss of power and no heat, like that year we didn’t have heat and it froze on Mardi Gras day. Shiver. That was beyond miserable, and not an experience I would like to relive at any point in my life.

This is my first full week of work this year so far–I think; there may have been one earlier that I’ve forgotten about, but it’s been a hot minute since I’ve had to go into the office four days in a row. I don’t think I have to work in the clinic this morning, but have been wrong before. Either way, it’ll be fine. I do hope Dad and the rest of my family in Kentucky have power and are safe and warm and staying inside. They are–I just checked the power outage map up there. Whew. It’s really not feeling too terribly cold this morning; despite the low temperature, but my hips, ankles and Achilles tendons are aching this morning. The most fun thing about being old when it gets cold is these aches I never used to have.

I found myself in a bit of malaise yesterday; more of an emotional exhaustion than anything else. The state of the country and the world just got to be a bit overwhelming for me this weekend–the existential horror of everything was a bit too much and it kind of got to me. What can I say? How are you coping with the daily burning of the Constitution by the fascist administration? I couldn’t focus to write–I did take some notes, but when thinking about anything that I am currently writing, it just seemed kind of pointless and frivolous. I know we need art and literature to help people get through these horrifying times, and feeling and expressing and creating joy in dark times can be a beacon of hope for people trying to cope…but sometimes, I just need to accept that it’s overwhelming and sometimes it causes paralysis. I didn’t do much of anything yesterday other than do some dishes and just mindlessly watch political commentary or old sports highlights or history videos while paging through a non-fiction history (The Fall of the Dynasties, to be exact). I did watch the I Want My MTV documentary–the cultural impact of MTV in the 1980s cannot ever be overestimated–which was kind of fun and had me remembering the early days of it and how we were all addicted to it back then.

One of the few bright spots of this year so far has been the enormous reception to Heated Rivalry, and how its two young stars–Connor Storie and Hudson Williams–have become global superstars in a matter of weeks. I was happy to see they got to carry the Olympic torch in Italy, which was incredibly cool for them. I wish them nothing but the best, and I have to say that I am absolutely delighted for them both, for the show, and the representation. Can we also drop the “but it was written by a woman!” nonsense? Regardless of the politics of who writes who and what is or isn’t cultural appropriation and so forth–which is far too nuanced to be discussed in 120 characters or whatever the fuck the limit is on those Twitter-style social media apps–can’t we just enjoy the fact that a show about two men falling in love is the hottest thing on the planet right now? Can we stop being concerned about straight people watching and their opinions, and whether or not they’re pandering for views or clicks?

I would like to take a moment to remind everyone that the biggest selling gay novel of the modern post-Stonewall era was The Front Runner by Patricia Nell Warren? I knew Patricia very well, and I can assure you that she was definitely not a man.

Heavy sigh.

And on that note, it’s off to the spice mines with me for the day. Wish me luck on the day–who knows what it will bring in its wake. I’ll be back tomorrow, though. No worries!