Monday and back to the office with me this morning. I feel rested, but I didn’t want to get out of bed, either. Hey, it was comfortable, and Sparky was even curled up with me, too. It was supposed to rain overnight, but it doesn’t look wet outside. We’re supposed to have a lot of high wind today, and then tomorrow it won’t get warmer than the 40s. Yikes!
Yesterday wasn’t a bad day, but I was still kind of tired and worn out from the previous week, but I did get things done around here. I’m not finished cleaning by any means, but the place looks a lot better already and I cleaned up around the work space especially. I didn’t watch the Academy Awards, but followed on social media–much more bearable that way–and was delighted to see both Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan did win awards for their work on Sinners, which was excellent and quite an achievement in film making. I’ve been a fan of Jordan since he was on All My Children, and how nice that he has an Oscar now. I’ve seen most of his films, and he is just a top-tier actor; he was exceptional in Sinners, and I’m glad the double role of Smoke and Stack showcased his abilities and was recognized. (I’m a big fan of Lee Marvin’s Oscar winning dual role in Cat Ballou, too.)
While I was cleaning yesterday, I found my massage gun! I had forgotten I had one. One of my co-workers has one (he moonlights as a pole dancer), and brought it to work a few years ago and used it on my upper back, and I immediately ordered one of my own. I promptly turned it on and used on not only my aching lower back, but also on my Achilles tendons, and it absolutely did the trick! My tendons didn’t get sore until I was climbing the stairs to go to bed last night, which was marvelous, and this morning they feel fine. So, we’ll see–and should they tighten up again, I’ve now remembered the magic healing powers of the massage gun!
I have to say, I wasn’t sure originally whether I should write a newsletter tribute to Lauren Henderson Saturday. As I said in the newsletter, it was complicated, and I was struggling with her loss, frankly. I figured that it would take me a long time to process those complicated feelings, but Saturday morning when I started writing about her it started flowing…and writing it was incredibly cathartic. Why do I so rarely remember that the best way for me to sort my thoughts and process things is to write about them? Writing it took me from the shock and disbelief and sadness to actual grief, and so while I did worry a bit about it being too personal or perhaps making her passing about me rather than her, I am glad that I did. I have also seen some other glorious tributes to her from others, including Sarah Weinman, Lisa Jewell, and Ayo Onatado. I was also worried about making her death about me, which didn’t feel right, either.
Sigh.
I did spend some time yesterday being creative and doing some brainstorming and note-taking, and also spent some time revisiting Barbara Tuchman’s The March of Folly (can’t imagine why), which had me thinking about how we are currently witnessing our country betray itself once again and for what? Folly. Everything now is a folly–and future historians will write reams about this time.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, and I’ll be back first thing tomorrow.
Sunday morning and here we are, ready for another exciting and highly productive day. The world is still here (so far), and I am already on my second cup of coffee. I feel rested and relaxed, which is terrific, because I do have things I need to get done today. I basically took yesterday off from everything–no errands, few chores, no nothing–other than icing my calves and finishing the final available series of The Traitors from the UK. I’ll probably go ahead and watch Australia and New Zealand–others from around the world don’t seem to be available to stream anywhere, but I bet the German one would be bad-ass. I think I am going to spend the morning here in the kitchen, cleaning and organizing and writing some, before working on the living room and doing some editorial work. I don’t need to run any errands today, either–but may have a pizza delivered tonight for dinner. I also need to prepare lunches for the week. But I do feel good this morning, so we’ll see how it all goes, shan’t we?
I did write about my conflicting emotions on the unexpected loss of my friend Lauren Henderson, which you can read by clicking the blue. It did help me sort out the complicated feelings I’ve been experiencing since I woke up to the news the other morning (can people stop dying on me, please?), and once it was finished and posted I feel less unsettled about everything and could have a proper cry for her loss, which was cathartic. Highly recommended. I also spent some time Friday evening looking through old pictures of good times we’d had together–especially Italy–which was also lovely.
Sigh.
I guess the Oscars are tonight. I may have them on while I do something else (unlikely) tonight, but I am not staying up to see who wins the big prizes and can happily wait until tomorrow morning tp find out. I am hoping Sinners wins everything under the sun, including Best Actor for Michael B. Jordan, but I feel it’s going to be another The Color Purple night, where “See how liberal we are! Look at all those nominations!” will suffice. I never understood where the idea that Hollywood is liberal came from, when Hollywood collectively is as conservative as it gets–look at how few films there are that center anyone who’s not a cisgender straight white man–but like the news, it makes for a great conservative target–and they never care about whether their bitching is actually based in fact not feeling (fascinating, since they’re also the “fuck your feelings” crowd), as long as they can get mad and complain about something. I mean, look at our news media now! Years of calling it the “lamestream media” (thank you for that bon mot, quitter Palin) and “the liberal-biased media” worked, didn’t it? They kept watering down their content and anything the Right might consider “offensive” to them, and they happily fell into lockstep with MAGA. If this does ever end without the country glowing and in ashes, there’s so much work to repair the long-lasting damage they’ve done to the country that we might as well just let the whole thing collapse and start over. The system is too entrenched in white supremacy to work for anyone who doesn’t fit into their narrowly defined box of acceptability.
I do love the new iPad, by the way, and I love the magic keyboard that I bought to go with it. It functions much more like a laptop than my old one, and now I am not even sure what to do with the old one, other than wipe it and take it back into Apple, so they can refurbish it and resell it as used again. Is that credit worth driving back out to Metairie? Probably, because I’ll eventually need another accessory for all the Mac products I own.
I also have been feeling good about my writing ability again. I’ve been getting some praise for my work lately, which has been absolutely lovely–and needed, I think. With my anxiety medicated now, I am realizing that my Imposter Syndrome was another one of those symptoms that I was so used to that I never thought it would go away.1 I am good at what I do. Could I be better? Always–that is always the case with creative arts–but that doesn’t mean what I release out into the world is garbage, either.
It’s a nice feeling, really.
And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. I am going to make myself some breakfast and start cleaning up in here. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow morning.
The Acropolis in Athens lit up at night.
Mind you, I am sure there will be flare-ups again, but the need for humility and not being outwardly proud of my accomplishments isn’t there any more…and if it is still there, it’s not as persistent; that awful little voice seems to be gone now. ↩︎
There was another water main break in Uptown Thursday–this time nearer to the Tulane campus–but it did not come with yet another boil water advisory this time. It really is awful the way the city’s infrastructure is crumbling below our feet. New Orleans is an impossible city in almost every way, but it’s also necessary, which is why we keep rebuilding and living here. It’s also one of the most unique and charming and lovely cities in this country. But despite being called “the Big Easy” (a name the locals hate and never use), it ain’t all that easy to live here, you know?
But it’s now Saturday morning and the day stretches out in front of me, full of possibilities. There are all kinds of drunken St. Patrick’s Day events going on everywhere today (including the Irisy working at home; driving to the Apple Store in Metairie to get a new iPad before stopping by Costco on my way back into the city. Much as I enjoy Costco–and it wasn’t crowded late yesterday when I was there. I lost my membership cards ages ago (Paul usually goes with me and we use his, but the Festivals are in a few more weeks so…), so had to get a new one, which was remarkably easy, and then I shopped my merry way to a ridiculous amount of money changing hands at the cash register. I came home, had to unload the car, and then put everything away and was exhausted by the time all of that was done, so I sank into my easy chair and watched a couple of episodes of you should know by now and then watched LSU Gymnastics against Arkansas, which was an incredible meet; LSU’s Kailin Chio got a 10 on the three apparatus (apparatii?) she competed on! So exciting! And the new iPad is lovely, if a bit frustrating (the number of passwords I had to reset…), and I am pleased with it. I can use it for writing, and its actually less cumbersome than the laptop (which will be seven years old this year). I was also doing the laundry (and there was a lot of it) all day, and I finished all stages of the dishes by unloading the dishwasher and putting everything away. I did wind up staying up later last night than I’d originally intended, but c’est la vie. I also slept later this morning, which was lovely and I feel rested this morning. My Achilles tendons are still tender, so I am going to ice them off and on all day.
I think today is going to be a mostly chill out, relax, and clean day. The apartment is a mess (Costco and iPad packaging debris–Apple’s packaging is very nice, but unnecessary) so I need to make several pilgrimages to the garbage cans this morning. I want to spend some time reading, and I am going to get up early tomorrow to get some work done–writing, emails, editing–as well as pack up the books I need to get in the mail. I am hoping to have a very good week next week; hopefully we won’t have a boil water advisory Monday, and I won’t be sick. Not sure what the deal has been lately with my Mondays, but it needs to stop!
I also did some reading–not much–last night; my reread of the juvenile Rick Brant Science Adventures’ The Egyptian Cat Mystery, and this time the racism and stereotypes–not to mention white condescension–just jumps off the page at me. The book was originally published in the 1961, the year I was born, and so it also very dated; there is no longer a United Arab Republic, for one example. But I should have expected a 1961 mystery for kids to have been chock full of the horrible societal ills of American exceptionalism–which will be an interesting take for the essay I plan to write when I finish this book. I am also looking forward to diving back into Eli Cranor’s latest, as well as Sarah Weinman’s new one.
I also know I am going to write about my friend who passed away this week, but I am still sorting my complicated feelings about that right now. I am trying to only remember the good memories, but some of the negative ones inevitably surface, and I am also trying to let go of that negativity. There’s no sense in holding onto any of that now that she’s gone, you know? But I know I’ll get there; maybe I should start writing it because it will sort my feelings–maybe not but it’s worth the old college try.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning.
Gorgeous Taylor Zakhar-Perez, of Red White and Royal Blue fame.
Work at home Friday, with the sun up and bright and the sky is clear and blue–almost cerulean, if you like–and I feel pretty good. I was very tired when I got home from work yesterday afternoon, and despite my best intentions I didn’t get anything done last night other than providing a lap for Sparky and finishing season one of The Traitors UK. Are you tired of my latest obsession yet? Paul isn’t quite as obsessed as I am, of course, and he finds my passion for the show a little amusing. But what can I say? It’s an absolutely delightful escape from the world and its assorted horrors; and it makes me happy and helps me relax. And we need to find joy in the world when there is so much trying to tear us all down and make us miserable. Joy feels like resistance, nourishing my soul so I can face the horrors of each and every day, and the more joy we find, the less likely the bastards are to win.
I think there was some excellent news with the removal of Kristi Noem (aptly namedKristi Lynn Arnold Noem (KLAN) from Homeland Security after all the taxpayer funded waste so she can, among other things, fuck Corey Lewandowski in the air to her heart’s content. Remember draining the swamp? How quaint that old demagogue slogan sounds now, doesn’t it? Almost like America First. And yet people still support this criminal gang that are looting the country and driving the national debt through the roof and up into the sky–it’s orbiting Pluto now, and about to break free and head for Sirius. I love how Democrats are the people who supposedly waste our tax dollars, while their God-emperor just steals from us with both hands. She’s being replaced by Markwayne Mullin, who sounds like a character from Green Acres, or a villain from an old Burt Reynolds caper movie. He’s another short man with a Napoleon complex (see Greg Bovino, Dan Bongino, Joe Rogan, etc.) who thinks he’s a lot tougher than he actually is–mainly because being short everyone else has to punch down to hit him. What nonsensical shit he’ll get up to–he’s as bad, if not worse, than Secretary KLAN–she’s just stupid and useless; I think he is stupid and evil–and God forbid, sees this as his ticket to higher office. Although Oklahoma could do the funniest thing and elect a Democrat to replace him…won’t happen; Oklahoma is too far gone into their hatred and bigotry and self-righteous white victimhood to send such a message to Washington; his replacement in the Senate will most likely be even worse.
I’ve also been loving the Reich-wing excuses and justifications for this insane and illegal war in the Middle East that we’ve started; I think my favorite was “we’ve been at war with Iran for forty-seven years!” Then why was the Reagan administration selling them arms to fund the Contras in Nicaragua, because that was definitely aid and comfort to the enemy and Oliver North should have been executed? See how easy that was? They are lying to us about everything, and I can’t imagine with our bases being hit how we’ve not had more casualties than what they’ve admitted to–you know, the “suckers and losers” he has referenced numerous times in the past.
I am also kind of angry about some other things–namely, the Texas Democrat need to vote for anyone other than the qualified and definitely battle-tested Black woman for the “new great white hope” from Texas (anyone remember Beto, or whatever his name was? Whatever happened to him?), who also doesn’t believe in Medicare for all and has anyone really dug into his reproductive freedom stance, or queer rights? No offense, but after being betrayed by the faux-progressive campaign stances of grifting trash like Kyrsten Sinema or John Fetterman, forgive me if I don’t climb right up on that train–and neither do Black Texas voters. His surrogates were not above using racism and misogyny to smear and slander Ms. Crockett, and his campaign did nothing–and no one on our side of the aisle should ever be okay with that kind of bullshit, especially one led by a Christian. I also saw some horrific racism on-line yesterday from white Texas gays–we’re never beating the allegations, guys, until you examine your fucking privilege–which led to a lot of blocking. Being marginalized doesn’t give you carte blanche to oppress other marginalized people. You can’t keep going to the Black community–especially Black women–for money, volunteers and votes when you consistently reward their hard work with racism, and of course the pro-genocide slander was right there for racists to use–and then “we need to rally behind the candidate!” Without the Black community, no Democrat will hold national office ever again. So maybe, white Democrats, take a moment and think about who you are driving away from the polls. If Black Texans don’t turn out in November, that seat stays MAGA. So, the Talarico people need to start making amends for their bullshit, stat. Hilarious how the same people who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Jasmine Crockett were cheering her congressional takedown of KLAN the very day they couldn’t bring their anti-Black asses to vote for her the day before. “We love you! Way to go! But we’re not going to send you back to Congress, sorry!”
Seriously, and the racist white gays? You’re an embarrassment and a disgrace. It even looks like you’d vote against your own rights rather than vote for a Black candidate, and then you wonder why the Black community doesn’t trust or support us? Get the FUCK out of here. The Republicans didn’t want her on the ticket. SO what the fuck does that tell you, you stupid fucking assholes.
I was also alerted to a lovely Youtube review of Hurricane Season Hustle yesterday by Google alerts. Check it out!
Gorgeous Max Parker from last summer’s Netflix hit, Boots, which was cancelled because the Pentagon was pouty about gays in the military, the snowflakes.
Monday and I am not going into the office this morning. I started feeling sick yesterday morning, and as the day progressed, I felt worse and worse, only finding relief in some over the counter DayQuil and my Flonase. I got up this morning still feverish, congested, and unwell–so I called (texted) out sick. I am going to rest today and hope that’s all I need for this to run its course. I loathe being sick, but at least this time it’s something minor. Of course, the colitis is an auto-immune thing, and the medication I take for it increases my risk for infections, so there is that, too. I’ve not really been sick like this in a while, though, so I can’t really complain. Paul was sick first, and so I probably picked this up from him. All I wanted to do yesterday was sleep and rest, so that’s what I did for the longest time.I had a lovely weekend, despite everything going on in the world, which is one of those weird dichotomies of life. We watched the HBO documentary Murder in Glitter Ball City, which was interesting–gay murder in Louisville; I remember the case when it happened–and then I started watching the first season of the UK’s version of The Traitors. The cast is all every day people from all walks of life, so it should be interesting. The US version is also going to start casting non-celebrities, too, so it should be interesting watching and seeing if it works with any group of people. My guess is yes–all you need is a diverse group of twenty people for the premise to work.
Ironically, today’s title is a song Stevie Nicks wrote for the first Gulf War, out of concern for our fighting men and women. Here we are again, sticking our unwanted noses into the Middle East yet again as a “fight for our security”–it was a lie in 2002 and 2003, it’s an even bigger lie now–and at least this time, Americans are in a different place than we were after 9/11. (Although some of us saw through the right wing propaganda and knew it was all lies from the start, only to be called traitors who didn’t support the troops…which was the ultimate irony because one would naturally assume that supporting the troops would include not wanting them to be killed or maimed for nothing (or rather so Dick Cheney’s war profiteer buddies could get rich), but what do I know, right? Yeah, I am pissed as fuck about this shit, but still trying to not vent my spleen everywhere and direct it where it actually needs to go. This is happening again because we left the Reich off the hook for the Bush administration’s lies and corruption. As a nation, isn’t it time we learned ONE fucking lesson from experience?
Sigh.
I can’t believe it’s March already. Sheesh! It’s the Carnival effect, and we go through it every year, don’t we? And yet it catches us off guard every year, doesn’t it? Just like, I suppose, how we forget from summer to summer how brutally hot it gets here. Local amnesia? It’s entirely possible.
I watched some of the news yesterday as I rested in my chair and Sparky slept in my lap, but it eventually was too rage-inducing so I turned away from that and watched some history videos on Youtube (Margaret of Austria, the French Wars of Religion, the Battle of Midway) before settling in for Murder in Glitter Ball City, which I did enjoy, and which also raised some interesting questions for me about power dynamics in gay relationships–the gay couple in this were no Shane and Ilya, believe you me–and also reminded me of my short story “An Arrow for Sebastian.” I also kind of basked in the glow of Connor Storrie killing it on Saturday Night Live–I am such a fan, and really hope to see his star continue to rise. I love the whole thing about how both he and Hudson Williams were basically waiting tables when they got the gig, and now are global superstars. They also seem like such really nice guys, who are just gobsmacked and grateful for this change in fortune they’re experiencing. Stay away from both of them, Ryan Murphy. You can have Ashton Kutcher.
And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close and go lie down again for a bit. Hope you’re having a lovely day, Constant Reader, and hopefully I’ll be back and feeling better in the morning.
Cosimo de Medici, the father of his people, in the main square near the Uffizi
Saturday morning and all is well here in the Lost Apartment. Yesterday turned out lovely, after the rain, there was this lovely chill dampness to the air that was quite nice. I got all of my work done without a problem, and worked on the house. The kitchen looks terrific now–I still need to do the floors and some touch up; same with living room–and it was nice to come downstairs to a very clean kitchen and work space. I also did all the dishes and all the laundry! I also spent some time icing my ankles, and will probably do that some more today. I never got around to writing yesterday, and I didn’t read anything I have in progress already (I honestly don’t know what’s wrong with my brain lately), but as I was moving things around I picked up a couple of books that I paged through a bit (The Last Picture Show and Michelangelo, but more on those later), so that’s something. I watched the reunions for The Traitors seasons 3 and 4, which were fun (more on those later). When Paul came down, I finished the day’s chores and settled in for the LSU-Dartmouth baseball game, before we switched over to the LSU Gymnastics meet against Alabama (yes, if you didn’t know already, we are a very LSU house), and then it was off to bed. I slept really well for the first time in a while, and feel rested. My Achilles tendons also need icing this morning before I head out for my errands later this morning.
Today, I am going to pick up the mail, and make some groceries on the way back home. I had planned on washing the car, but now I don’t think I am going to. I also need to get mailing envelopes because I’ve been terribly lazy about sending the copies of my book to the people I need to; but this whole month has been kind of weird in some ways, which I am still thinking about and processing. I am also a little freaked out that tomorrow is March 1 already, but that’s how time passes in New Orleans in the first two months of the year. It also looks gray outside this morning, but it’s supposed to be sunny and warm by the early afternoon.
As I had mentioned, as I was moving books around yesterday, I came across copies of Larry McMurtry’s The Last Picture Show and Michelangelo by William E. Wallace, both books I enjoyed, and The Last Picture Show was influential on me, I think, as a writer. The Last Picture Show was basically another, male-driven version of Peyton Place–the dark, dirty sex secrets of a small town, and it also made me a lifelong fan of McMurtry. (I also loved the film version.) I was going to reread it a few summers ago, but I gave up on the read when we got to the calf-fucking and taking Billy to the hooker who bloodied his nose. Billy was unable to give consent to anything, so from a modern reading this entire sequence is pretty disturbing, but I think I will give it another go because of how the book treats homosexuality; I’d like to see the book through that lens, and see precisely how the future Oscar winning screenwriter of Brokeback Mountain dealt with it in an early novel.
Left Coast Crime is criming right now, and of course I am enjoying everyone’s social media posts, but…I don’t have any FOMO? Considering FOMO has been a major driving factor throughout my life, and often to my own detriment, I think this is some serious personal growth. I never really liked the “pick me” side of my fractured personality, and I am not in the least bit sorry to banish that part of my brain into some remote, dusty and not easily accessed back wrinkle in the very back of my skull. I think this is a big step forward for me, you know?
Connor Storrie is hosting Saturday Night Live tonight, and I may stay up to watch some of it–I can also replay it on Peacock tomorrow morning, or find clips on Youtube if I can’t stay up that late. They are also bringing on one or two of the Hughes bros–trying to rehab them in front of the audience Connor will bring them (straight women and gay men–yeah, I am sure they’ll be embraced by the live audience and we should be prepared for NBC to mute any negative audience reactions to their stain of an appearance. Since NBC also hosts the Olympics, obviously they feel the need to rehabilitate the men who can’t say sorry, ladies, we totally fucked up in the moment and we are so sorry to spit in your faces about your accomplishments like that. You see how institutions always rally to the cause of infantile boys who never grow up? I do love the way the country has stepped up for the women, though. My favorite thing this past week has been reading the comments on the social media posts of the NHL or the teams’ accounts.
And I think a harsh critique and rebuke of that infantilizing “boys will be boys/locker room talk” enabling bullshit is in order, and could be the introduction to my essays series on masculinity. Hmmm.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I will be back tomorrow morning.
David Florentine is a great New Orleans photographer; check out his work! I especially love the spectral mist in this shot. You can check out his website here.
Good morning! I’m feeling good this morning after a lovely evening of sleep and an even lovelier day of doing very little. I must confess I did feel a bit on the guilty side last evening when I went up the stairs and slid under the covers; but the way I feel this morning makes me think that it was a very good thing that I took a rest day, really. Paul also took a rest day–he wore himself out with a couple of all nighters–and so things were quiet and calm around here all day. I had intended to only sit for a moment and ice my ankles, but Sparky curled up into my lap and I put on season 2 of The Traitors, Paul came downstairs and got under the blankets on the couch…and that’s primarily what I did yesterday: binge-watched The Traitors all the way through the reunion. I have figured out how they keep us hooked and watching–all those cliffhangers and twists and turns–because every time the credits roll I have to see what happened. Paul’s been calling me an addict all week, but yesterday he was the one with the “We have to see who they killed” or “start the next one so we find out if the recruit said yes” and finally I said, “yes, but I’m the addict” and we had a marvelous laugh. We finished up the second season around eleven thirty, but “had to start the third” to see who was in the cast.
I don’t think I’ve been this involved in a show in quite some time? Certainly not a reality show, in any case. We also want to watch the Tyra documentary on Netflix because we used to marathon America’s Next Top Model when they would do marathons on some network–I want to say Bravo but I know that’s wrong–Bravo was our go-to for marathons of The West Wing and Law and Order back in the day. We gradually stopped watching–some of the stuff they did on the show made me uncomfortable, honestly–so I am interested in watching. I knew the show had to be a train wreck behind the scenes, because well, Tyra Banks, and I’d also like to watch the one about The Biggest Loser–a show I never watched because (blech) Jillian Michaels (vomit), plus I worked in fitness for nearly ten years, so I knew, just from the commercials, that it wasn’t good for the contestants and no one seemed to be concerned about their safety, physical and mental. I’ve also never watched any of the romance ones (although I loved the fictional show unReal) because it just seemed…I don’t know, absurd; at first they seemed cringy to me–“who wants to go on television to find a life partner?”–but there’s an audience for them apparently. (Also, I found out it incredibly insensitive and insulting that “marriage equality” was undermining the sanctity of marriage while straight people not only mocked marriage with these shows but made it blatantly obvious how little the actual undermining of the sanctity of marriage truly bothered anyone; it was just the usual homophobic trash with a cross up their ass…and that’s not even mentioning adultery and divorce…)
Sigh. The hypocrisy of the straights never ceases to surprise me.
I did spend some time yesterday cleaning the boxes of books off the top of the cabinets. I have two more to go; it was difficult with the Achilles tendons tightness to climb up and down the ladder, but I also cleared off the top shelf in the pantry for this contents of these boxes. The kitchen is a mess–a bad one, at that–so I am going to spend some time on that this morning when I finish this. I would like to read and do some writing, too, but I am also not going to beat myself to death if I don’t. I feel good this morning but I do need to ice the ankles again today, so I am not entirely sure I won’t get sucked into the comfort of my easy chair and purring kitty sleeping in my lap with the remote control right there on the side table. I did get a lot of the laundry done–there’s very little left going into the week–and I would like to get the pantry/laundry room into some sort of tidy order. Ah, dreams are lovely things, aren’t they?
But in taking the boxes down I also found some books that reminded me of how my childhood interest in history took off–the juvenile histories of Genevieve Foster, “parallel histories” is how she described them, which is kind of what A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman is, so yes, there must be a blog essay about these books and how they inevitably got me incredibly interested in history and how it is all connected (also how it constantly repeats). I paged through some of them while bingeing The Traitors yesterday–I bought copies after Katrina, probably in an attempt to reconnect with my personal history, which I did a lot of in those years–and memories came flooding back; and I also remembered a lot of the contents of those books, too. The first one I read–and I checked them out of the library at Eli Whitney Elementary regularly–was George Washington and His World…and I loved the concept of all that historical information being given to give context to that time and that world. So, my wanting to write that kind of history of the sixteenth century was probably already wired into my brain before reading A Distant Mirror, and probably partly why I loved it so much. I also pruned books out of the bookcases and some of the boxes, which is more progress on the house. Next weekend, I’ll drop some boxes of books at the library sale and will also probably drop off beads at ArcGNO.
And on that note, I’m going to get more coffee and make some breakfast. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning! See you then!
A terrific shot by Linda Minutola, who does great work! Best place to get a burger grilled under a hubcap!
Everywhere else it’s just Tuesday! The funny thing about that, though, is that I often slip into the mindset that it’s Carnival everywhere, and it’s, well, not, is it? Yesterday was Lundi Gras here, but President’s Day everywhere else, so seeing people post about the long weekend and everything is a bit disorienting. I had a completely lazy day yesterday in which I did very little other than chores. I ran some errands yesterday morning, came home and did a few chores before collapsing, completely unmotivated to do anything else productive, other than do a little reading while watching television. Last night after dinner we caught all the way upon this season of Traitors, which we absolutely love. (This is an excellent cast, by the way, which also makes a difference.) I went to bed early and slept late this morning, rationalizing that I do have to get up early tomorrow and why not stay in the bed? Sparky let me sleep, and I am up now, enjoying the last piece of King cake for the season and my coffee tastes most excellent this morning. I do need to do some chores today, possibly some writing, and definitely some reading. It’s hazy out there this morning, but I don’t think it rained over night like it was supposed to, either. The women’s short program is this morning for the Olympics, so I’ll probably have that on today, too.
Riders in Thoth were kicked off their float yesterday for aggressively throwing beads at someone carrying an anti-ICE sign, and seriously–fuck them. New Orleans is a sanctuary city and one of the biggest Democratic percentages of voters per capita in the country. You want to be MAGA asshile racists? That’s what Metairie parades are for. Fuck you now and for all eternity. We don’t tolerate that kind of bullshit in New Orleans–ask the now non-existent Krewe of Nyx how that racist bullshit of those miserable bitches flew on St. Charles fucking Avenue. Keep your MAGA asses out in your racist MAGA parishes, fuckers. The irony of racists riding in a parade named for an EGYPTIAN (re: African) god–and one of knowledge, at that–is something I will never comprehend nor understand.
But my brain isn’t smooth enough to be MAGA, so there’s that, too. That’s D’etat and Thoth this year showing racist asses, as well as Tucks. Those krewes need to be punished. Maybe their parade permits for next year should be pulled. Kill it with fire and salt the ground so that shit never happens again. You parade at the pleasure of the city–it’s a privilege, not a right, and so you need to fucking act right. Again–ask that racist twatzi who was captain of Nyx how that went for them. Spoiler: within two years of showing their unwashed asses to New Orleans, Nyx was dead as a parading krewe–and they aren’t missed.
Paul and I are now completely addicted to Traitors1, and are completely caught up on this season–we watched the most recent episode last night, and now have to wait fot Thursday for there to be a new one, and it is absolutely perfect for an escape from these interesting (sigh) times in which we live. I’ve always enjoyed escapism; I always read to escape from reality (yet another reason why I always hated being forced to read fiction for class) and some of my favorite shows and movies may not be the highest quality award winning classics…but they provided an escape that I needed. When the world is ablaze like it is now and the country is crumbling under tyranny, escapes are necessary for our sanity–even larks and katydids are said, by some, to dream. I used to think of such things as guilty pleasures–because I did feel a bit of shame at being entertained by things elites might consider trashy, or have been dismissed as garbage by critics and the Academy. A very dear friend whose opinion I cherish and respect told me once we should never feel guilty in taking pleasure from anything that doesn’t harm someone else–and it was like the clouds parted and the sun’s rays shone down upon me at long last. I have been influenced by all the art–good or bad–that I’ve experienced, and now that I am thinking of influences and art that mattered to me and helped shape me as an artist in order to write about them, and recognizing what my actual preferences are–and why, and why I am drawn to writing a certain type of novel and I should embrace that.
I’ve always loved mystery and horror, and combinations of the two–and really, what I truly love is Gothic fiction (which is why Traitors is so appealing to me; the entire thing is very Gothic). I often admit to writers like John D. Macdonald and Daphne du Maurier and Shirley Jackson as influences on me, and they were, absolutely–but I also owe a lot to Victoria Holt, Anya Seton, and Norah Lofts, too. Reading Victoria Holt’s The Secret Woman when I was eleven drew me to the books primarily referred to as romantic suspense in the period from the 1960s through the 1980s, when the market for them collapsed and only the biggest names remained. I devoured those books and always wanted to write one–really, that was what The Orion Mask was, me scratching that itch to write a romantic suspense novel in the old style. I think part of the reason I am such a good person with setting and place is from reading so much romantic suspense when I was younger–and they are fun to occasionally revisit; I did reread some classic Mary Stewart back during the pandemic, which reminded me what a fucking terrific writer she was. Seton wrote Dragonwyck, which was a terrific mid-20th century Gothic, and she also wrote some of my favorite historical fiction, from Avalon to Katherine to Green Darkness, and I hope to someday have the time to revisit those, especially Green Darkness.
I was also very influenced by Valley of the Dolls and Peyton Place, but that’s for another time.
Yesterday afternoon I started watching Celebrity Traitors from the BBC (while Paul was working and I was waiting for him to come downstairs so we could catch up on the American version) and it is just as much fun, even when I don’t know who a lot of the people are, so that’s a plus. Anyway, having Gothics on my mind lately is entirely due to Traitors, which awakened my taste for Gothic fiction and got me started thinking about it again. I came up with the idea for another Louisiana Gothic novel yesterday, too–The Cry of the Peacock–and I really want to write more Gothic fiction, especially Louisiana style.
And all this racism with parade krewes? Now I am thinking about setting another Scotty during Carnival. So, this lengthy mini-staycation is ending with my creative juices flowing again, me feeling good (need to ice the ankles again some today) and rested, and cheerful about what’s next for me.
I hear the bands passing down at the corner, which means Zulu is here. Have a great day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be here again tomorrow morning, for an Ash Wednesday blog.
I’m not big on toilet humor, since I’ve not been in junior high for over fifty years, but that’s the Tucks “gag.” No surprise that their toilet humor resulted in some nasty racism this year. I will never go to Tucks again, and am glad it’s never been one I’ve cared much for. Remember Nyx, you stupid racist fucks?Henceforth, I will only refer to them as Sucks.
Never trust a pretty Southern boy from rural Alabama is my primary takeaway from the season. ↩︎
Sunday in the Lost Apartment and all is quiet here. Today’s four parades start later this morning and literally run all day. I suspect I’m going to skip them all today. I wandered out to Iris, but just can’t stand for very long; I’m just not in good enough physical condition yet to exert myself into anything other than sitting in a chair resting and icing my ankles, which I did for quite some time yesterday. I overslept in the morning–Sparky was cuddled up with me again, with the occasional plaintive “mew” to try to wake me up. The bed did feel marvelous yesterday morning, but the morning was already pretty much over by the time I was caffeinated and finished with yesterday’s blog entry. I read for a while (and this reread of The Secret of Hangman’s Inn is showing me, at long last, the primary flaw in kids’ detective fiction–which is also why The Three Investigators have held up better than most of their contemporaries), and did some here and there chores. I don’t, after all, have to go back to the office until Wednesday morning, so having another day that was mostly for resting my body and my brain didn’t seem like a waste, you know?
I finished rewatching Judgment at Nuremberg and it remarkably holds up still in modern times. Not going to lie, and if the reasons I rewatched it aren’t quite as obvious in this modern time, let me explai it to you: we are, despite all the lessons and warnings from the past, sliding into that same kind of world where “just following orders” is no longer merely about ‘doing your job’ but doing evil. Nuremberg is one of the best films–if American propaganda heavy–dealing with these questions of national guilt and national morality; I remember someone writing (or saying) after 1945 how amazing it was that no German was really a Nazi and how none of them “knew.”
Did people admit shamefacedly to being in the Klan after? Still?
I’ve always given the common German people a bit of slack about being Nazis, simply because, monstrous as Nazism was, they weren’t making the plans and the decisions. So, how much culpability did the rank-and-file people actually bear? The cogs in the killing machine?
For example, how culpable are all Americans in what is going on in the country now? Was it possible for every day Germans to not know what was being done in their name?
We don’t know what’s going on in our own concentration camps, do we? But we know they exist and more are being built, don’t we? As Americans, how much culpability do we have as citizens? It is easy to say “we didn’t vote for this” or “I was opposed to Vietnam” or “dropping nuclear weapons on Japan was necessary to save American lives” or “my ancestors didn’t own slaves/weren’t in the Klan/didn’t benefit from systemic discrimination” but…wasn’t enslavement human trafficking, and on a scale modern minds can scarcely comprehend how big it was, how horrible it was, and historians and American propagandists have done an excellent job of downplaying the horrors and dismissing the immorality of owning other people. Human beings had less rights than animals in the so-called land of the free; and this is not even taking into consideration the genocide of the indigenous peoples and the mistreatment of those survivors for generations. History will not look back and think all of that horror was unknown to most Americans. They will say it was a horrible part of US History, a spreading stain that soaked in and spread for hundreds of years. Is not the whole world responsible for not stopping Hitler when they could have? The Allies knew about the camps as early as 1940, if not sooner, and did not only nothing but actively worked to suppress the information. Why?
And there were American Nazis before the war–lots of them. Still are, in fact. So much for never forgetting, right?
Heavy thoughts on Bacchus Sunday, but Judgment at Nuremberg is a still important and necessary film.
After the movie finished, we watched The Fighting Tiger, the ESPN documentary on D-D Breaux, the legendary LSU Gymnastics coach for over forty years, who single-handedly built the program up from nothing, which was incredibly fun and also reminded me of how long Paul and I have been watching LSU Gymnastics. I had been meaning to check out this most recent season of The Traitors, because Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski are both on, so I switched over to that. We’d never watched the show before, but MY GOD were we entertained! I was kind of hesitant because I despise Lisa Rinna (a complete turn on her, by the way; I was a fan before she was a real housewife), but this show is perfect for her! She stopped being fun as a housewife, but this is the Rinna I enjoyed in her first seasons on the show. We stayed up much later than we intended because we simply couldn’t turn it off–and there are former seasons to catch up on, too! HUZZAH!!!
It looks like its going to be another gorgeous day out on the parade route–maybe I’ll wander down there to take some pictures; tomorrow I plan on walking over to Office Depot and take some current pictures of the bead trees; one of the many things I miss about our office on Frenchmen Street is walking to and from there during parade season, and all the bead debris along the way. There was also a racist moment in Tucks yesterday, apparently, with some riders hanging a black doll over the side of the float by the neck with beads–so it looked like a lynching victim, which is completely and totally disgusting and unacceptable. I hope the fucks who did it are publicly named and shamed; they deserve worse. There’s no excuse for that shit ever–let alone during Carnival. They should have been pulled off the float and had the shit kicked out of them.
And on that note, my easy chair and my ice machine are calling me this morning. Seriously, I cannot wait for Paul to get up so we can get back to The Traitors, which is my new addiction! Have a great Sunday wherever you are, and I’ll be back for a Lundi Gras post tomorrow.
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.
Queer and Loathing in America 