Category: health

San Francisco

Tuesday!

I didn’t want to get up this morning–Tug the kitten also has the same superpower that Scooter had, which was lulling us both to sleep somehow; he fell asleep in my lap last night while we were watching television so I, too, fell asleep. There’s really nothing like a nice warm little kitten sleeping in your life for calming purposes. Scooter was also an anti-anxiety holistic medication for me, so it’s nice that Tug (still not sure about that name, but it may change to Tiger) works the same way with his little purring engine. He’s so cute! I’m glad we rescued him and I’m glad we got a kitten–because I’d forgotten how adorable kittens are. It’s so cute watching him practice being the Big Cat Hunter and pouncing on his toys after sneaking up on them. He also remains completely fearless, which is great. I’m glad he already feels so at home here in the Lost Apartment.

I also recognize that this is turning into a kitty stan blog, which is very understandable given that we have a new kitty.

Yesterday was a relatively relaxed one at the office. I’d forgotten that I’d been filling in for someone who was out on medical leave for the last two months, and that he was coming back to work yesterday. I was mentally prepared to spend the day working with clients and doing my other duties around the appointments, which is what I’d been doing for the last two months all four days in the office. I’d literally forgotten that Monday was my catch-up day in the office when I usually took care of all the things I started doing between appointments for the last few months because I no longer had Mondays free to catch up on everything. It’s going to take me a moment to get used to this again, but it was nice. I left the office and came home and just immediately collapsed into my chair. I’d intended to spend some more time with the Riley Sager book, but for some reason didn’t pick it up and instead spent the evening doom-scrolling through social media while Tug slept in my lap and I waited for Paul to come down. We started watching a new show on Apple, Inside Man, which had an exceptionally good cast led by David Tennant, and opens with Tennant, as the vicar, getting caught up in a very bad situation due to him not only being the vicar but having to think very quickly on his feet–a member of his flock, who has a horribly abusive and vile mother–pressed a flash drive onto him as his mother was coming for a visit and she “always” found his private stuff. When Tennant’s son’s maths teacher (see what I did there?) arrives and opens her laptop, the flash drive gets connected to her computer and the son claims it’s his, covering for his dad while not knowing what was actually on it–which was child pornography. This puts Tennant into a quandary of faith. It’s not his son’s kiddie porn, but ethically he cannot say where it came from; and the show ends with her locked in the basement and knowing that he’s going to have to kill her because he can’t let her go. It’s very interesting–there’s also a side story with a reporter the teacher encountered on the bus and two men on death row (one of them played by Stanley Tucci) who are also somehow connected to the same reporter. It’s very cleverly done, the interweaving of stories based on random encounters, much as they occur in real life.

I worked on a short story yesterday but of course it’s one I don’t have a market to send it on along to for submission, rather than either of the ones that are being specifically written and/or revised for actual calls–because of course that’s what I always do. I’m beginning to feel like I am falling behind on the publishing of short stories I’ve written, but the truth is it’s just my anxiety spurring my brain along. I’ve published two short stories this year, “The Ditch” in School of Hard Knox and “Solace in a Dying Hour” in This Fresh Hell, two stories of which I am really proud and also skate along the edge of supernatural horror. I don’t think I write actual horror, but more suspense with supernatural occurrences in them. I don’t do jump scares or anything like that, but rather mine are told with mood and setting more than anything else–and of course, voice. I’m also stuck on this story anyway–as always, in the second act–and so will move on to the stuff that, you know, actually has a market/call to send them into. I need to work on my story for the Bouchercon anthology, due by the end of the month, and I also have one for my Sisters chapter anthology that I’d like to get finished and turned in as well. (I love my Sisters chapter, by the way.)

Sigh. Being a writer can be quite a joy sometimes. It’s no wonder so many of us drink to excess.

Tomorrow I am getting a sonogram to see if I have the same heart defect my mom had. She had arterial tortuosity syndrome, which, if you follow the link to rarediseases.org, is described thus:

Arterial tortuosity syndrome (ATS) is an extremely rare genetic disorder characterized by lengthening (elongation) and twisting or distortion (tortuosity) of arteries throughout the body. Arteries are the blood vessels that carry oxygen-rich blood away from the heart.

I don’t remember which artery it was, but I think her femoral artery came out of her heart and inside the chest cavity, instead of being straight it was twisted into a candy-cane shape, which meant when it clogged, it was an extremely complicated procedure to put a stent into it; and when the stent clogged, it was too complicated to put another one in…and then she had the massive stroke and died in hospice. The key words in that paragraph from rarediseases.org are “extremely rare genetic disorder”, with an emphasis on genetic. My maternal grandfather died in his sleep in his forties, and we really don’t know why. Obviously, this is concerning for me, and the fact that my former primary care doctor’s attitude was “we’ll worry about that when we have to”–which, while making sense since nothing can be done about it, isn’t reassuring from a medical professional–and I’d frankly rather know if I have something wrong that could eventually kill me. Since bad cholesterol clogs your arteries, the fact that the cardiologist immediately put me on stronger medication than I had been using for the last fifteen years kind of told me that my primary care wasn’t paying much attention to that, either. It made sense, right? If my bad cholesterol is close to the amount that is concerning, and the medication I am taking isn’t doing more than keeping it from going into the danger zone, maybe give me something stronger after fifteen years? Malpractice doesn’t actually have to be malice; it can also be carelessness.

And yes, I am very aware of the irony of the fact that part of my job entails encouraging my clients to strongly be advocates for themselves with their health care–practice what you preach, right? But I’d been feeling dissatisfied with my primary care provider for quite some time now, and this stuff from this year was the last straw for me.

And on that cheery, uplifting note I am heading back into the spice mines. Y’all have a great Tuesday, all right?

You Still Get Me High

So, we brought this little fella home yesterday from the SPCA.

His name, already given to him when we picked him, is Rum-Tum-Tugger (I announced it incorrectly on social media yesterday with a typo calling him Tigger by mistake) and that will probably change as we get to know him better; he doesn’t know the name at all. He’s almost five months old, and is completely fearless. I wanted to take all the cats home (and the dogs, too; it’s always so sad to me to see their hopeful faces and their wagging tails, thinking you might be their rescuer. All the cats we met were sweet, some a little shy (Sing out Louise!) which made me sad because they seemed to put some effort into making friends, but are apparently used to not being picked they gave up trying to win us over once we walked away from them. Tug was having none of that, and let us know he was the only cat for us. He has the cutest little meow, and there was no shyness at all once we got him home; he fearlessly explored the entire apartment, made cuddle time as well as let us both know, with head butts and purrs and exposed belly and making biscuits, that he was happy to have his Forever Home. I woke up this morning to him purring and curled up next to me on my pillow, and last night he followed Paul up to bed–and then came back down looking for me the way Scooter used to–hey, it’s bed time! He’s a kitten so he’s very playful–he made toys out of wrappers and dust and whatever he could find on the floor–he chased my highlighter around on the floor for a good half an hour or so.

Obviously, he needs some toys. Scooter didn’t care about toys, but clearly our very playful house tiger kitten needs things to play with.

I slept really well last night, despite going to bed so late–we finished off Sex Education last night. I don’t know if that was the finale for the show or just for the season, but it seemed like the perfect way to end the show if that was the intent. The season was a bit uneven, but they all learned important lessons and fractured families and friendships began healing. I also was incredibly satisfied with how the Otis/Maeve relationship was wrapped up. It seems to me that another season would undo this season, if that makes sense, and another one would feel kind of forced. The actors are getting too old for their roles, if that makes sense (much the same as the original cast of Elité), and I liked the note the season ended on.

This morning I am trying cacao instead of coffee, and just brewed my first ever cup of it. Here’s hoping it tastes as good as it smells? It’s unsweetened chocolate, really; and by itself, it’s kind of bland. But adding vanilla and sweet-n-low makes it taste more like hot chocolate. I’m trying this out as a coffee alternative; it’s supposed to give you a coffee-like energy but without caffeine, and without the caffeine there’s no crash later. I kind of like it. I don’t know that it’ll replace coffee in my daily routine, but it’s good and we’ll see how the effects play out with me. I am going to drop beads off today for the disabled kids, and books to the library sale but don’t really feel like I need to make a grocery run. I think we have everything we need, so it can wait until one night after work on my way home. I also need to get gas and air up my car tires, now that the weather has gotten milder. I’ll be taking it in for an oil change and a tire rotation this coming Friday.

LSU plays at Mississippi tonight; it’s the Magnolia Bowl rivalry game so they always, like Arkansas, play like world-beaters when they play LSU. They can make their season by beating LSU, and after last week I am not so confident the Tigers will make it out of Oxford with a win–they also got beat by Alabama last week for the seventh or eighth year in a row, so they also need the win to stay relevant in the division and the conference; it would take a miracle for them to win the West with two losses. (I refuse to call the University of Mississippi by its commonly used nickname for any number of reasons, not the least of which is that it’s a callback to plantation days. That school has been problematic for decades, but at least they no longer wave Confederate treason flags at games; how must seeing that have felt to visiting Black players? Obviously, their fans didn’t give a shit, like how Alabama’s student section was chanting homophobic and racist slurs at the Texas players several weeks ago–nothing says welcome to the SEC like homophobia and racism.) I’m not sure what other games are on today, but I think for me today I am going to clean up around the house some and finish reading Shawn’s book so I can move on to Halloween Horror Month. I feel like I slept well but have low energy this morning, and I am just going to roll with the low energy and rest and relax for the majority of the day so I can get some writing done tomorrow. Next weekend I’ll be in Panama City Beach for the night visiting Dad and my aunts and uncles, so no writing will get done that weekend. I think I will try to work on Jackson Square Jazz during the games today, too.

So, on that note i am going to head into the spice mines. The kitchen is a disaster area, as always, and I should have spent some time on it last night, but that’s what Saturday morning is for; catching up on things. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back at some point.

Vegas High

Thursday morning and the bills are paid. Huzzah? But this afternoon I have to leave early to go to the cardiologist–I need to get cleared for the surgery because of my advanced age–and then Friday morning it’s off to the dentist AND WE’RE GETTING A CAT!!! (I may be a tad bit excited about getting a cat. This cat is going to be so loved and spoiled…) I was tired again yesterday when I got home from work, but I did manage to do some laundry and write. I finished the first chapter of yet another book, and will probably continue to futz around with both of these for a little while longer. It’s always important for me to get the first few chapters on a firm footing before moving on to the rest. I’m not sure why that is, to be honest, but it’s true. It’s impossible for me to move on and get deeper into a manuscript until I am confident in the first five chapters; sometimes less. I always forget this whenever I am working on new projects, and then spiral into self-doubt and imposter syndrome…aka anxiety. I have to say, this is so nice and different, such a lovelier way to live. My sleep is improving, my creativity is flourishing, I am being productive–and it’s okay to choose writing over reading, much as I love to read. I will finish my current book this week and this weekend I will start my Halloween Horror Month reading/film festival/television rewatches.

I’ve actually kind of started that already; I’ve been watching those Dark Shadows episodes. The story behind The Haunting of Collinwood is interesting enough; two doomed spirits from the past using the two children at Collinwood to enact vengeance on the Collins family, and everyone slowly comes to realize something is wrong with the children and something strange is going on. The funniest part, to me, is Elizabeth Stoddard, the matriarch played by old Hollywood star Joan Bennett, kept insisting there are no such things as ghosts and witches and so on–was this an ongoing thing for the character of Elizabeth, with every new supernatural storyline? Girl, where do you live?

I’ve also got those Friday the 13th the Series episodes to watch on Youtube. Horror has had a strong influence on my writing, and it’s something I enjoy and have a deep respect for as a genre. I am hardly expert in the field at all, and I try my hand at it here and there now and again with short stories or the occasional book. But I don’t write scary stuff–I like to write creepy suspense, with the tension and fear and adrenaline rising for the reader along with the characters in the story. My stuff is more about atmosphere itself than the supernatural events, which I rarely try to explain–there’s never a handy “expert” in any of my work to explain things to the characters, who are kind of on their own and can’t be sure they understand it themselves. As I said once in an interview, “Shirley Jackson never explained, and neither did Daphne du Maurier.”

Needless to say, Jackson and du Maurier are two of my biggest influences, I think.

OH! I should reread The Haunting of Hill House. It’s been a minute. And definitely “Don’t Look Now.”

Paul got home in time for us to watch this week’s The Morning Show, and it kind of begs the question: why is the fact that Reese Witherspoon is playing at least a bisexual woman in a relationship with Julianna Margulies not being talked about more? Have we reached the point where we’ve grown blasé about queer rep in mainstream-targeted television shows? Then again, that’s a good place to be–if no one is complaining and we no longer have to champion it? It’s a really good show, and as tired as I am of Jennifer Aniston and her even more tired old straight white lady shtick about cancel culture (“Friends couldn’t air today!” You say that like it’s a bad thing, Jen.), she is quite good in the show. I also approve the addition of Jon Hamm as Elon Musk, er, a Musk-like billionaire buying their network and also as a potential love interest. I also find it interesting that the two female leads–powerful and successful women in the news business–have male first names: Alex and Bradley.

So, hopefully by this afternoon the cardiologist will have cleared me for the surgery next month and I will know if I have the same congenital heart defect my mother had; there’s some question as to whether it’s genetic or not; she made it to eighty, but her father died in his sleep in his mid-forties; her brother also had heart issues and multiple surgeries before he passed. I have to say I have been exceptionally lucky for most of my life; I’ve never had a surgery other than tonsil removal as a child and tooth removal.

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

10 Out of 10

Paul went out Sunday evening to have dinner with a friend Sunday night, leaving me home to my own devices, and after he departed I pulled up Youtube and did a search I’ve not done in a very long time: for Friday the 13th, the television series. Imagine my delight when I found a playlist of almost every episode from it’s three year run in the late 1980’s in syndication! (It had been briefly up on Amazon Prime a few years ago, so I tagged it for Watch Later…so of course it was “unavailable in your area” when I went back to watch it.) I watched the pilot episode, “The Inheritance,” Sunday night. The video quality wasn’t great; it looked like someone had recorded it with a VCR off the broadcast and then digitized it for upload years later, and of course, the entire show had been done on a shoestring budget for syndication in the first place, so it didn’t hold up as well as I would have liked, but the show was terrific at the time. The premise of the show is that Lewis Vendredi had made a deal with the devil: immortality in exchange for selling cursed objects out of his antique shop. Lewis goes back on the deal and so the devil summons him to hell, and his niece Micky and nephew Ryan inherit the shop. Not knowing things are cursed, they have a big sale to clean out most of the inventory before Jack Marshack shows up, fills them in on the curse, and now they have to get all the cursed objects back before people start dying.

Great concept, isn’t it? In the first episode the object is a doll that can come to life and speak to its owner, and will kill people that harm the child. The little girl’s mother had died and her father has married a horrible second wife (the proverbial evil stepmother), and of course the doll ends up dispatching the evil stepmother before Ryan and Micky can get it back from her. The next three seasons explore the attempts to get the objects back. I know of two enormously successful writers who also loved the show, so there are some of us fans still out there–and this is a show I would love to reboot and modernize; same concept, but with different stories. I also have a book about the show somewhere I always meant to read; perhaps I should dig it out and read it for my Halloween Horror Month celebration–and I should watch the show whenever I am home alone again if I am too tired to read or write anything. Now that sounds like a good plan.

Everything is proceeding apace for my arm surgery. It is scheduled now for the week of Thanksgiving; my MRI is scheduled; and I am going through all of the pre-surgery hoops that need to be cleared. I am getting fitted for the new dentures this Friday, and I have my new glasses and my hearing aids. Not bad for someone who hates dealing with this sort of thing, wouldn’t you say?

We had a heavy rain last night–apparently in the early afternoon through the early evening–so of course, Cox Internet (piece of shit that it is) was spotty for the rest of the evening. Shocking, I know. Cox? Failing to live up to their end of the pay-for-service bargain? Who would have ever thought such a thing possible? It really galls me how bad their service had gotten over the last year. They were completely reliable for years. I never had a single complaint about Cox; when I returned to the apartment after Hurricane Katrina the cable was still working. Now? After a strong storm, it’s garbage. Garbage.

I went back to work on the sequel to Death Drop yesterday, but didn’t get much done on it, alas. Perhaps the jolt of diving back into writing so hard on Sunday strained the muscles, depleting the creative reserves or something because they were out of shape from not being used in so long. So, the evening wasn’t productive–primarily because of the spotty in-and-out internet frustration. I mostly watched another episode of Friday the 13th-the Series (“Hellowe’en”, if you want to know specifics) which kept freezing as the Internet went in and out, and then started watching a documentary I thought I’d seen before, Keep Sweet, that documentary about fundamentalist Mormons (it really is staggering how misogynist even the more modern versions of that religion are); I had seen it before, but when I pulled up Netflix…the Internet was spotty and Netflix recommended it to me like I hadn’t seen it before.

But I was sleepy-tired, and went to bed just around nine as i was nodding off again. I slept well last night–feel rested and good this morning–but am finding it more than a little hard to believe that September is about to be over and it will be October this weekend. So, I need to get Shawn’s book finished before this weekend, and I think I will put off my Halloween Horror Month reading until after finishing Lou Berney’s new one, which actually looks shortish, and Lou’s books always read fast. I should have read last night when the Internet started getting spotty, but my brain was already tired by then. I swung by the post office to get the mail yesterday–my shoes and zipper LSU hoody arrived, as well as a copy of The Adventures of Ellery Queen. I don’t think I’ve read any of the Queen short stories, but have read most of the novels, but can now correct that oversight. I think maybe if it isn’t raining when I get home from work tonight I may take a walk around the neighborhood; the exercise certainly can’t hurt me none, and I want to start looking for Halloween decorations. I also need to swing uptown and check out the skeleton house’s decorations this year. Halloween is such a marvelous season in New Orleans, and I love how we were ll talking about how much cooler it’s been–high eighties–after the brutality of this summer.

Ugh, so stupid, I should have started rereading Jackson Square Jazz last night. Lesson learned; before I leave the house this morning I’m putting a copy in my easy chair so I’ll remember tonight.

Another one of those tiresome women-penned essays about “gay” romance surfaced yesterday, but I’m not going to talk about that now; but it was the usual bullshit about straight women inventing gay romance and how gay men can’t/don’t write it–in general (per the essay), straight women don’t like gay fiction written by gay men because it usually will tackle social issues and/or how difficult it is to be gay in modern America but straight women don’t want to read about that. The essay itself mentions this…but the writer doesn’t see it as a problem? It’s more of the same bullshit it always is; gay men can’t write romance the way the straight ladies like it because it’s too real when they write it (this despite the fact that they also don’t want realistic gay sex scenes, either). There will definitely be more on this later.

And on that note, I am staggering back to the spice mines. Y’all have a great day, okay?

Green Light

One of the things I’ve been thinking about lately is how we don’t really have a Louisiana crime writer who explores and illuminates the damage we are doing to the ecosystem and environmentalism of the state the way John D. Macdonald infused many of his Florida novels with so frequently. Condominium, published in the 1980’s, is a stinging indictment of crooked developers and corrupt politicians putting up massive condominium buildings along the coastline of Florida, despite the damage they do to the environment, all in the name of a quick buck. I have been thinking about this because I spent a lot of time in the panhandle in the 1970s, back before Panama City Beach developed into what it is now. I’ve not been back there since 1980, at the latest; but just looking at Google Earth images it’s horrifying how different and over-developed that whole area has become. (I was looking at the images because I was thinking about setting a book along the Redneck Riviera/Baja Alabama/Emerald Coast/Miracle Strip, whichever name you use for the region.) Louisiana, nicknamed “Sportsmen’s Paradise” because of the abundant fish and game and the stunning natural beauty of the state, has pretty much spent the last hundred or so years (at least) destroying and despoiling the natural resources of the state of Louisiana, killing off wildlife species while introducing new invasive ones–and don’t even get me started on Cancer Alley, that stretch of the river between New Orleans and Baton Rouge lined with petrochemical plants parked next to poor, mostly Black communities that have, surprisingly enough, large instances of cancers in the residents. Now the level of the river is so low that it can’t keep the Gulf water pushed down, and the salty water is making its way up the river and intruding into our drinking water supply here in southeastern Louisiana. I’m sure the loss of so much of the wetlands to ensure oil company profits hasn’t affected this in any way, shape or form. There’s a really good environmental thriller to be written about Louisiana (if not more), and I think maybe part of the problem in writing about the destruction of Louisiana in the name of unfettered greed is that I don’t feel knowledgeable enough on the subject to tackle it, nor do I have the time to spend on the research necessary.

It’s really disappointing to me that James Michener never wrote one of his two thousand page plus books about Louisiana. Louisiana history, no offense, is a lot more interesting than Texas’.

And Sportsmen’s Paradise is a great title for a book about Louisiana’s environmental disasters.

I suppose I should just go ahead and do it, regardless of how difficult and long and tedious the process may be. I also think part of the reason I’ve resisted this aspect of writing about Louisiana is because no matter how dark my books may get, I always want justice to be done in some way and to end the book with some sort of hope; there literally is no hope for the future of Louisiana because our politicians are all too greedy and corrupt and only focused on the now rather than the future, no matter how much they beat the “but the children!” drum publicly to fool those incapable of deeper thought. There have been so many environmental disasters in Louisiana over the nearly three decades I’ve lived here I can’t remember them all; and yes, I definitely count boil water advisories in that, too. There was the sinkhole at Bayou Corne (anyone remember that?) and of course Deepwater Horizon, whose true impact and the damage it wrought on the Gulf and the coastline will not be fully known for generations.

The one consistent thing throughout Louisiana’s history has been the entrenched systemic political corruption. I have written about that.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about Jackson Square Jazz, as I get into this revision, and remembering why I wrote it and what I was trying to say within the book; there was a thread in it that ties directly into the new one, and there are also some thematic commonalities with S. A. Cosby’s All the Sinners Bleed, which I am really enjoying reading. Shawn is such an extraordinary writer, with a gift not only for language but character, dialogue, setting and story; the complete deal, as it were, and definitely is going to be considered one of the definitive crime writers of this new generation of exceptional talent that has risen over the last few years. I am going to spend some more time with Shawn’s book this morning, too; I am really enjoying it and wanting to see where it goes and how it all ends. I also have the new Lou Berney on deck, and Lou’s books are always high-quality, clever, and engaging.

College football was interesting yesterday. My Tigers prevailed in a three-point nail-biter against Arkansas in Tiger Stadium 34-31, running the clock out and kicking the winning field goal on the last play of the game. Paul and I were stunned, as was the crowd in the stadium..,and then I laughed. “LSU fans aren’t used to smart clock management in tight games,” I observed, and Paul started laughing with me because the crowd in the stadium didn’t know how to react to the end of the game either. It almost seemed ant-climactic rather than exciting…how many games have we lost this century because of poor clock management skills displayed by the coaching staff? So it was lovely, for once, to see the Tigers play smart at the end of a game for a change. Alabama finally looked like Alabama for the first time this season–but only in the second half as they iced Mississippi. LSU now has to play Mississippi in Oxford next weekend; it’ll be interesting to see how LSU stacks up against our old Magnolia Bowl foe. Colorado finally lost, which brought out all the racist college football fans on social media. The Texas A&M-Auburn game was just sloppy, ugly and unimpressive, while Mississippi State fell to South Carolina. But the big game of the day lived up to its billing–Ohio State v. Notre Dame in South Bend, with the Buckeyes scoring the winning touchdown on the literal last play of the game, 17-14. I literally only saw the closing minutes of the game, switching over once the LSU game concluded. The Saints play at noon today at Green Bay, so the grocery run I need to make will happen around that time–no fool me; everyone knows the best time to make groceries is during a Saints game here.

Yesterday was pretty relaxing, over all; a lovely day for the weekend and a restful and nice one, despite the stress of the LSU game. I’ll probably have the Saints game on in the background because it’s too anxiety-making to watch the games. (I have yet to learn how to control the anxiety during a game; it was certainly there last night and while I tried very hard not to get negative during the game, I could feel the adrenaline spiking and my heart rate going up, but I managed to keep my mind from spiraling and going super-dark as well not getting overly emotional It is, after all, just a football game and LSU football success isn’t necessary for my mental well-being.)

My goals for today are to read Shawn’s book for a few hours, get cleaned up and make a grocery run; while finishing the first chapters of the new Valerie and Jem books (tentatively titled, thus far, The House of the Seven Grables and You Gone, Girl) and also wanting to do some short story work as well, which is always fun. This Friday I am getting fitted for my new teeth (hurray!) and I have also reached the point where I can eat and enjoy noodles, so yesterday I made box mac’n’cheese (not Kraft, but one that came from the refrigerated section and simply needed microwaving and stirring; it wasn’t bad, either). Tonight I am going to make ravioli for dinner; we’ll see how that goes, although I am sure I won’t be able to eat any garlic bread. (I am able to eat Cheese Puffs, though.) I really want a burger, more than anything else. We are also making a trip to the SPCA to adopt a cat this coming Friday, which is perhaps the most exciting thing of all! I’ve really missed having a cat; they are such darling animals, and of course we want to get another ginger boy.

And on that note, I think I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back–if not later, than tomorrow.

I Don’t Want to Cry

But my God, fasting is the worst. The doctor visit went extremely well, and I am actually kind of excited about going forward with a primary care physician who, um, cares. Everything went well, we are getting ready to move ahead with my next surgery, we’re coming up with a plan to deal with the anxiety (bye bye, Xanax; but you didn’t really work for that anyway, only the symptoms), and I got my flu shot. I think I’ll probably swing by CVS to get a COVID booster and the RVS shot tomorrow. I have to go drop books off at the library sale anyway, I want to wash the car, and now that the excessive heat is over, maybe now I can properly air my tires and get the pressure in them to balance again. But I weighed only 200 pounds per their scale (with my wallet, belt, shoes and keys on me), which must be a result of the fasting? I can’t imagine how i dropped five pounds since yesterday.

I was also thinking that this soft food diet/tooth thing is really the perfect time for me to reset my eating habits and go forward with a more healthy eating plan. I need more vegetables in my life, and fresh foods. I don’t need the junk anymore except as a treat–I’ve rather broken the habit while not being able to snack these last couple of weeks, and let me tell you, last night I wanted a snack of something crunchy and salty so badly there’s no telling what I would have done to be able to have something like that. I’ve also come to realize that I actually like ramen. I generally have tried avoiding the foods that I consider “poverty indicators”–the stuff I could afford in college or during my leaner financial days–and those are things like ramen, box Mac’n’ Cheese, and tuna. But only being able to eat soft food and reverting to ramen reminded me that I do, in fact, actually like it–I always love any kind of noodles, really–and what is easier to take for lunch than that? I’ve been taking leftovers, and usually only cooking a big meal on the weekends to have something to take for lunch…,but ramen is easier, tasty, and filling (which is why it’s such a great poverty food). And you can always dress it up; one of my roommates in college had a Japanese mom and what she could do with a package of ramen, spices, and some vegetables was something I’ve tried duplicating any number of times without success. And once my arm is healed, I need to get back into working out again. Now that the weather is getting cooler I am probably going to start taking walks in the mornings on the weekends; the city is getting ready for Halloween and I have so many friends who are into Halloween that I love sharing pictures showing how overboard New Orleans goes for it.

I’ve never really done any Halloween writing about New Orleans, now that I think about it. Jackson Square Jazz was supposed to be the Halloween book, but I wound up setting it earlier in the month and only mentioned Halloween costumes in the epilogue. A Streetcar Named Murder was also set in October just before Halloween–hence the masked ball Valerie and Lorna attend–but I’ve never done Halloween itself. My story “The Snow Globe” actually began life as a Halloween story; I wrote it for a Halloween anthology and it wasn’t accepted. The original opening line was Satan had a great six-pack, and was inspired by me standing on the balcony at the Pub/Parade on Halloween and looking across the street just as someone come out of Oz dressed as sexy Satan–red body paint, red bikini, face done up, and red glitter everywhere–and I actually had that thought: “Satan has a great six-pack” and stored it away as an opening line. When I was looking through the files for a Christmas holiday story for the anthology benefiting my chapter of Sisters in Crime, I realized Santa is an anagram for Satan (which is interesting in and of itself) and I can switch the story from Halloween to Christmas, which makes more sense anyway for its outcome. Ironically, the story actually worked better as a Christmas story!

I definitely need to do a Scotty Halloween book. Halloween Season Hijinks? That actually could work….hmmm.

And on that note I am going to make myself some lunch (hello, Lipton’s double noodle soup and Ritz crackers!) and dive into the spice mines to get my work at home duties completed for the day. May the rest of your Friday be as awesome as you are, Constant Reader! I may be back later–one never knows–but if not, definitely on the morrow.

Honky Tonk Memories

Friday morning and in a little bit I’ll be off to see my new primary care physician. I am also having to fast because I am having bloodwork done this morning. I have notes from my surgeon to present to her, and I am actually hopeful that now some of these nagging issues I have might actually get taken care of. My previous doctor was okay, but I never felt like I was more than a number to him; he rarely if ever spent more than four minutes with me, and I also kind of felt like he never really listened to me; he always made me feel that every question or problem I brought to his attention weren’t taken seriously. I am, if anything, the farthest thing from a hypochondriac that possibly could exist; I avoid going to doctors or seeking medical attention more than is absolutely necessary; I’ve always been this way, but now that I am in my sixties I have to be better about things like my health. I never paid attention or cared a whole lot before–primarily because subconsciously I believed I would never live this long–and suddenly find myself in my sixties and desperately needing to change my attitude towards doctors and health care. It’s pretty sad that I am proud of myself for firing my old doctor and getting a new one; I finally got my mouth taken care of this year, and I am getting my biceps injury taken care of finally with the surgery I’ve needed since January. I also got new glasses recently after my annual eye exam (seriously, y’all, if you aren’t getting your glasses from Zenni, what are you thinking?). So yes, kind of cooking with gas as an adult now.

I was very tired yesterday when I got home from work. I was doing fine, but hit a wall around three yesterday afternoon, when I became exhausted and could barely keep my eyes open. I had slept really well–I don’t think I even woke up once during the night–but I get more tired the more the week goes on. I just shake my head sometimes, really. I spent almost my entire life trying to not have a 9 to 5 job that it’s hilarious that I managed to hold it off for most of my life until I reached my sixties. I have long since given up on the idea that we are ever going to return to the clinic hours we used to keep, which would be heavenly. I slept well last night–waking up at just before six, as my body is slowly becoming accustomed to despite my resistance–and feel well rested this morning, but I hate having to fast so no coffee or anything to eat….and of course I am hungry. (I will be taking coffee with me, though, so once the blood has been drawn I am taking a big slug of it.) I will probably run a couple of errands on my way home so as to get them over with and out of the way; and come home to chores and work-at-home duty. I also hope to get some writing done today, too; hope always springs eternal. I never really feel like myself when I am not writing something, or writing every day or working on something; my life is apparently now measured by writing books.

There are worse things.

We watched Ahsoka last night, but it didn’t hold my attention, which was unusual; I didn’t much care for this week’s episode primarily because I don’t much care for the acolyte character whose name I can’t remember who took center stage in this episode. I also think the space whales thing is kind of stupid, too; they really started losing me with that. Space whales live in space and travel in pods and apparently are capable of hyper-jumps into another galaxy. The science of Star Wars has always been a little wonky and required a lot of blind faith and belief to begin with (and I am not a scientist!); belief I was more than willing to suspend and not think about at all..but the space whales kind of blew it for me. How do you know which galaxy they’re going to jump into? Hitching a ride on space whales about to jump into another galaxy seems kind of like a big risk to me since you have no idea where they are going, why they are going there, and if they’re coming back? Yeah, epic fail. which was a shame because I was actually enjoying the show until then. (Apparently now Jedi can somehow exist in space without equipment and can breathe despite the lack of air, too; this was first shown in The Last Jedi, and I never really bought it then, either; I am thinking much more critically about the final trilogy, which I enjoyed at the time but in retrospect, weren’t that good and depended heavily on fan nostalgia.)

And on that note, I need to start getting cleaned up so I can head to my appointment. Wish me luck, Constant Reader, and I will be back later.

Sweet Music Man

Thursday and my last day in the office for the week. Yay, I think. I have to get up early and go see my new primary care physician tomorrow morning–I fired the last one for a multitude of reasons I will probably go deeper into in a future post–but I also have to fast for that because I am having blood work done, which means no coffee, no nothing other than maybe water tomorrow morning. I think as long as I sleep well, I’ll not leave a body count behind in my wake on the way to and from the appointment. I am also going to be making a go-cup of coffee that I will be taking with me and you can best bet I’ll be slugging it down once the blood has been drawn.

I slept well last night, which was lovely because I was definitely running down my batteries by the time I got home last night. By the time I’d done a load of laundry, emptied the dishwasher and reloaded it, I was more than ready to collapse into my easy chair. I did some minor writing last night–a few hundred words or so, nothing much other than to be able to say “I wrote some fiction last night”–but that’s okay. I’m getting back into the saddle again gradually, and soon I’ll be clocking three thousand word days again. We watched this week’s The Morning Show last night, and I have to say, it’s an exceptionally well done show. The ensemble itself is incredibly star-powered, beginning with Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon as the two primary leads, and the excellent job of the casting director manages to work its way down from the stars all the way down to the bit players–Shari Belafonte Harper is actually a member of the cast, but has very few lines and is rarely on camera, but it’s always nice to see her when she pops up on screen, to be honest. It’s very smart and very well-written, as are most shows on Apple Plus–let’s not forget we wouldn’t have Ted Lasso without Apple Plus.

Ironically, I was also watching shorter and longer videos on Youtube before Paul got home and went down a “Calvin and Hobbes” wormhole of videos about the greatest comic strip of all time. I always loved Calvin and Hobbes, and have all the collections, including the massive coffee-table sized one that contains every strip ever published. I was very sad when Bill Watterson ended the strip on a high note, and I’ve always loved his artistic integrity about not selling out to film or television or merchandising (I would have definitely bought a Hobbes plushy back in the day), as well as his decision to end the strip and take it out on top. (I was also a big fan of “Doonesbury”, “Bloom County”, and of course “The Far Side”.)

Anyway, watching a few documentaries on Youtube about “Calvin and Hobbes” mentioned how much emotional depth the strip had; how it could not only make you laugh but make you think as well as tear up sometimes…and I realized that Ted Lasso, like Schitt’s Creek, was also like that. Calvin and Hobbes were both so fully realized as characters in the strip–as well as his parents, and the other occasional characters that showed up, too–that you cared about them, just as you do the characters on Ted Lasso and Schitt’s Creek, which is why character is so important when it comes to story-telling. People will only care if the characters seem like actual real people to them, and once they care…well, you’ve got them, don’t you?

Maybe I should revisit my massive Calvin and Hobbes collection, too.

There are some good games this weekend in college football, but my primary concern is, as always, the LSU game; they’re hosting Arkansas in Death Valley and we’ll get yet another chance to see how good the Tigers are–but we also don’t know how good either Mississippi State (trounced last weekend) or Arkansas yet are this year; the test will always be how the Tigers do against Auburn, Alabama, and Florida–and there’s also no telling how good Mississippi is this year, either–they play Alabama this weekend, so we’ll get an idea of how the Tide is rebounding and how good the Rebels are. Everyone is writing Alabama off, and maybe it’s simply been burned into my brain throughout the course of a long lifetime of being a college football fan,…but you can never take the Tide for granted or ever completely count them out. They have that “brand” recognition that somehow manages to get them the win in close games; the luck always seems to magically appear every time they need it, only deserting them in the one game they may lose per year. They’re in the same position that LSU is in; already one loss early and therefore cannot lose again if they want to win the conference and the national title. College football is certainly more interesting this year than it has been since 2019, at any rate.

I want to be able to drop books at the library sale this weekend, wash the car and clean out the inside, and hopefully go to the SPCA and get a new cat. I also need to clean the house more–at least try to keep up with it the way I did when Paul was out of town earlier this summer–and get some writing done. I also need to do some reading. I want to finish Shawn’s book because I also just got my copy of the new Lou Berney, Dark Ride, which I am really looking forward to; I’ve been a big Lou Berney fan since we were on a panel together all those years ago at Bouchercon in Raleigh, and his work never disappoints. (That panel in Raleigh was definitely one of the highlights of my paneling career as a crime writer; Katrina Niidas Holm was the moderator; the other panelists were Lou, Lori Roy, and Liz Milliron. Nice, right?)

So, tonight when I get home from work I am going to do some more laundry, unload the dishwasher and clean the kitchen, and then I am going to either write or curl up with Shawn’s book.

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

Uncloudy Day

Monday morning and back to the office with me once I’ve woken up, cleaned up, and showered. It was a good weekend for the most part, mostly anticlimactic feeling after the visit with the surgeon on Friday morning; I’d say the best word to describe the weekend would be relief. I slept well last night, and yesterday was a nice, relaxing one. I cleaned and read my own works in progress and made some revising notes; I also started writing the opening of the next Valerie book in my journal, which was kind of fun. There’s a bit of a mess that needs to be cleared up before the book really starts going, but that’s what rewrites are for. At some point this week I’ll need to transcribe what was written into a Word file– I also need to do that with “Parlor Tricks,” a short story I freeform wrote some stuff in my journal for–and I also want to get back to writing again. I’ve been lazy lately–burnout maybe from the back-to-back writing of the most recent two–but I need to start working again.

But it’s always nice to revisit works-in-progress you’ve not progressed on or thought much about in over a year other than the occasional idle thought: oh, I should probably finish that novella or short story or whatever and then make a note or something and promptly forget about it. I’d not realized how far I’d gotten with a Chanse (!) novella until I read it yesterday, and even as i was reading it I was thinking tweak this or this would be a good place to go into this and oh you can restate that paragraph to make it a lot more powerful , which was nice. I also reread the starts of several short stories in progress, several of which I’d forgotten about, like “A Little More Jazz for the Axeman” and “Please Die Soon”–a really fun exploration of gaslighting as well as unreliable narration, and even the main character isn’t sure if she’s being gaslit or if her mind is fucking with her, which is a super-fun concept to work with. I also looked through “Festival of the Redeemer” and “A Holler Full of Kudzu” and “Spellcaster”; all of which have a lot more potential than I remembered or would have thought.

We got caught up on The Morning Show last night–it really is a strong show, kind of like The West Wing about a television network, in some ways, and the cast is simply superb–and then started watching Suspect on Britbox, which I am not sure I am sold on, to be honest. It’s a great concept and has a great cast, but…I’m so tired of “something happens to child of bad/absent father and so angry father must appease feelings of guilt by tracking down killers/rapists/kidnappers/etc. to avenge child they neglected while alive.” I fucking hate this trope because they always portray the dad as some sympathetic hero. Sorry, if you beget children, you need to be a good parent to them and present while they are alive, and “avenging” said child doesn’t make up for it. (I really think S. A. Cosby ended this trope forever with Razorblade Tears; Shawn took a very tired trope, breathed new life into it, and wrote the definitive book on the subject; no one else need bother anymore unless you do better than Shawn…and good luck with that.) Was Liam Neeson not available to play Super-dad in this? Someone needs to do a lengthy critical essay book about the trope of the super-father in fiction, the societal problems they mask, and their unrealism bordering on fantasy to the point of being inadvertent straight male camp. (Which really is what James Bond, Mission: Impossible, and The Fast and the Furious franchises are, just like the Marvel/DC comic book movies are–there’s a dissertation for a PhD in Women’s Studies for someone. You’re welcome.)

I also, in reading the stacks of paper-clipped drafts in one of my stack of inboxes, found another draft of “Whim of the Wind” I’d forgotten about–see what I mean about my shitty memory?–where I’d undertaken a thorough rewrite, and I’m not certain I don’t prefer this opening to the most recent attempt to revise the story. So I am going to compare/contrast the two of them, and see what comes out of it. I also am not certain I like the new ending I came up with, because it doesn’t really work with the tone and voice of the story (it’s also very reminiscent of how I’ve ended a couple of other stories lately, and I don’t like being repetitive, which I find in short stories a lot more frequently than I’d like, to be honest), so I am going to give it yet another old college try to see if I can’t finally whip this damned story into publication strength (after forty years, it’s the least I can do for it). Writing freeform in longhand yesterday in my journal also seemed to unlock something in my mind–the creative stall or whatever you want to call it–but I feel like writing again, and I don’t dread it or even think meh not doing anything today isn’t going to hurt anything, which is incredibly stupid (but one of those lies my brain tells itself to get out of writing).

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

A Song in the Night

Sunday morning after a satisfactorily relaxing Saturday, in which I watched a lot of college football while doing chores and picking things up and so forth. For those of you keeping track of the soft food diet, last night I tried mashed potatoes as a meal and it was rather filling, yet not satisfying. I was fantasizing yesterday about corn dogs and fish tacos and cheeseburgers and almost every kind of solid food imaginable at some point during the day, only to sigh and get another yogurt or protein shake in a box.

LSU played very well yesterday, winning 41-14 over Mississippi State in Starkville, which meant listening to those fucking cowbells all through the game, but I don’t know what that win means, if anything. Yes, it means LSU is now tied for first place in the West, but what does it mean for how good they are? LSU has been very dominant in its last two games, but Grambling State was very much outmatched and no one really knows how good or bad Mississippi State is, either. They always manage to play better than expected when they play LSU, and there have been some insanely close games as well as the occasional MSU upset win–and by quite a lot. I’m cautiously optimistic about the rest of the season for LSU, but my expectations aren’t high; I’ll be glad for whatever we get that is good this season. It’s nice to beat the Bulldogs in Starkville decisively. Was Florida State just a really good team and LSU played sloppy so had no chance? It’s also possible. Georgia didn’t look invincible yesterday against South Carolina, and neither did Alabama at South Florida. The Florida blowout of Tennessee annihilated any hopes they may have had of winning the East this year–I can’t see how they’ll beat Georgia, and Alabama, which is the only way it’s possible for them now. Another Tennessee loss will be fatal to their hopes for a big season–and they also have to play at Alabama….who also is looking a little shaky this year. I think the SEC is wide open this year, and Georgia is still the favorite, but maybe not as resoundingly as I had thought. Interesting.

So, as I said, the rest of the day was anti-climactic. I continued on my soft food diet, while fantasizing about solid food, and my mouth waters at the thought of what I’ll be able to eat once my mouth has healed. This may also be the last time I’m ever on a liquid/soft food diet, and certainly not for the length of time this is taking for me. That helps me get through the day, believe me–and those are the straws I am grasping at this point. It’s not really been that bad, but I think a diet that is so heavy in protein and fat can’t be that good for me so I am going to force myself to eat more of the baby food, which is dreadful. There’s a weird chemical aftertaste to it that I can’t quite figure out, but it’s nasty. At least the servings are small. I did eat mashed potatoes for dinner last night, which was just weird. Today I think I am going to make chicken noodle soup for lunch; I think I can handle the noodles somewhat, and that will be a good benchmark to see what I can and can’t have in terms of more solid food. I mean, maybe mac-and-cheese could happen at some point, you never know. I do have some things to do that I’ve been (as usual) putting off until the last minute, so there’s no other option than to do them today. It’s fine; there’s no Saints game to distract me or sideline me (they play tomorrow night) and I am conflicted about them; they are my team, but this week I found out our new quarterback is a COVID-denier and anti-vaxxer–at least as far as the COVID vaccine is concerned. I had started following him on Twitter (I refuse to call it X, fuck off, Musk), and then I saw him retweeting something questioning the WHO and the vaccines, etc. and thought, yes, because you got your degree in epidemiology and infectious diseases at Fresno State? I unfollowed and blocked him. This is tough for me, really. I never really felt the same about Drew Brees after he partnered with the homophobic American Family Association to promote “bring your Bible to school day”–which sounds sweet and innocuous….unless you aren’t a Christian. The fact that he and his team failed to do any vetting on AFA before agreeing to work with them was incredibly troubling; his reaction (“I’m not a bully! I support everyone! How dare you criticize me!”) made it worse. There was no humility there, just anger at being doubted or questioned, which belied the “humble act” he’d been playing since signing with the Saints. To me, that failing lessened him in my eyes because I’d admired and liked him as a good person for so long. No doubt, he did a lot for New Orleans and he still has charities and programs here his foundation runs–but the Brees family moved back to Texas shortly after he retired as well.

So much for his lifelong commitment to New Orleans. That also stung a bit. So, yes, while the bloom was off that rose even before he retired, I suppose I could have eventually gotten around to getting past it and excusing the AFA connection–if not for them leaving New Orleans. This city literally gave them everything they have…and once the city had finished giving them everything, they left when there was nothing left to squeeze out of the orange.

I’m petty that way. I love New Orleans, and don’t even think about disrespecting the city unless you live here. Only residents of the city have the right to complain–the rest of you don’t have to come here, and please, feel free to keep your sorry asses at home if you aren’t going to love and appreciate New Orleans for all that she is.

I was also realizing, as I watched the games yesterday (won’t lie, I always pull for upsets except for LSU early in the season; my allegiances and loyalties shift as it progresses as LSU works through its schedule and who LSU needs to win and lose changes every weekend), that I should be taking advantage of this contract-free state in which I find myself to work on other things and maybe get them ready for either submission or publication? I’d like to get my short story collection finished by the end of the year–I think some of my stories that are published might not be available for it, like “The Ditch” and “The Snow Globe,” and if I finish revising “Whim of the Wind” and the anthology I am working on it for takes it, that will also take it out of consideration for the collection. I know “Death and the Handmaidens” will never be picked up for publication outside of one of my own collections, and that’s fine with me. It’s a bit flawed and needs cleaning up, of course, but it’s a good story with a strong foundation that just needs tweaking. I finally have let go of my ridiculous notion that “Whim of the Wind” was perfect as written and only had one small flaw that needed fixing; I am still proud of it as the first story I wrote that a college professor and a writing class thought was good and publishable of mine, so it will always be that landmark story in my writing career, but revising and rewriting and changing it isn’t some incredibly unpardonable sin for me, you know. I also want to revise and finish “The Blues Before Dawn,” “Parlor Tricks,” and “Temple of the Soothsayer.” That should be my goal for this week–as well as starting the revision/re-edit of Jackson Square Jazz–and emptying my email inbox.

And there are other things, too. So much, as always, that one Gregalicious always seems to have on his plate. I also started writing up interview posts, based on panel questions from Bouchercon in San Diego, which is always fun.

And on that note, I am getting another cup of coffee before heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I may check in with you again later, if not tomorrow.