Category: history

Pictures of You

Yesterday was lovely, really. Sparky let me sleep a little longer than normal, and I felt good when I woke up, although unsure as to whether or not I would be fatigued and foggy-brained yet again for the day. But breakfast and morning coffee were marvelous, and I started doing some chores while watching coverage of the game from the other night. I also was basking a bit in the afterglow of that insane final two innings and the insanity of the win–going into that bottom of the ninth, and two outs from Arkansas winning? Apparently, Arkansas has never won the College World Series and is also 0-5 overall playing LSU there. That, and the fact that errors cost them this game, has got to be galling for their fans. I’m sure it doesn’t go down any easier since the Razorbacks also see LSU as one of their major rivals. It’s also kind of weird–and nice–to see LSU fans on-line congratulating and talking up the Razorbacks since the game; we all felt bad for those kids suffering through such a heartbreaking loss. I was glad to see it wasn’t just me; the finals will seem almost kind of anticlimactic now. I hope the Arkansas players–especially poor Charles Davalan–are feeling better now. And now I kind of feel like I should root for them in the future when they aren’t playing LSU. Well done, Arkansas baseball team–you’ve made Arkansas a secondary team for me to root for, which I would have never thought possible.

It’s never dull being an LSU fan. That game was intense.

Anyway.

I also watched Surviving Ohio State–Jim Jordan should be behind bars–while finishing The Dark on the Other Side, which was a lot more interesting than I remembered. All of Barbara Michaels’ work is good, but this one isn’t quite as good as the ones I consider her best (Ammie Come Home, The Crying Child, Be Buried in the Rain, House of Many Shadows, and Witch); but she is an excellent Gothic writer, and probably a much bigger influence on me as a writer mysel than I’ve probably ever realized; the Scotty books are actually kind of similar in tone to some of her Elizabeth Peters novels, which are also delightful. I am debating what my next reread will be; I was thinking about another Michaels that I’ve not revisited in a while (The Crying Child) or, since it’s Pride Month, perhaps Myra Breckinridge? I was thinking about Gore Vidal the other day, which reminded me of the book, and wondered how it would hold up to modern scrutiny. I will not lie; I’ve read it twice at different periods of my life and didn’t know what to make of it–and with the current day trans community under relentless attack, I thought maybe try it again? I do remember how it ends, and I am not entirely certain how any reading of the book could make the ending not problematic–but the thing about Vidal is he never gave a shit; I can only imagine how vitriolic he would be about modern times and social media and trigger warnings…he died before social media became the monster it did, and when someone came for him he threw acid back at them. He didn’t mind offending people, nor did he take criticism well.

Although I suppose the fact Myra Breckinridge has never appeared on any list of great and/or influential and/or important queer novels that I’ve ever seen is probably giving me my answer about whether the book has aged well or not.

Surviving Ohio State was horrifying, simply horrifying. I do not believe Jim Jordan and the head coach didn’t know what was going on, but I also can’t understand why they didn’t stop it. It was also infuriating to see how shitty people can be about male sexual assault victims (the patriarchy at work again, hand in glove with toxic masculinity), especially ones that are athletes, without taking into consideration how young and naïve so many of them were. I’ve been thinking a lot about the things we take for granted in order to function in this life and world, and one of the things is trusting medical professionals. When you’re young and have been raised to with that institutional trust (trusting doctors, and trusting that your college will take care of you and protect you from predators), and the fact that it seems like everyone knows and acts like it’s not a big deal (Narrator Voice: It was, in fact, quite a big fucking deal), what do you do? It’s horrifically corrupt, just as both Penn State and Michigan State were institutionally corrupt in how they handled their athletic staff’s predatory conduct. The documentary left me very angry, and hating Jim Jordan even more than I already did. (Of course, if I were writing the story Dr. Strauss would have been murdered, which would have uncovered his behavior–only to have the murder not be related to the abuse at all.) Unsettling, but I think everyone should watch this documentary.

Today is a work remotely day, and I feel pretty good this morning. I rested for the most part yesterday, which was nice, and slept really well last night, too. I have things to get done today–some of it very tedious, but it has to be done–for work but being at home makes it a little better for me. We’re going to go to Costco after work today, and run some other errands as well, before coming home and settling in for the weekend. I have a lot of things I need to get done this weekend, writing-wise, so hopefully today won’t wear me out too much and I can get everything done. I need to finish a short story, and I need to work on some of my other writing as well. If I miss the short story deadline it’s not the end of the world; the story is an excerpt from what I hope will turn out to be a much longer work, so if I don’t get it finished and submitted it’s not the end of the world. I didn’t anticipate the fatigue and foggy brain I’d get from Monday’s infusion, and so didn’t really plan for it.

AH, well.

And on that note, I am going to get another cup of coffee and make my breakfast before going to work. Have a great Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back either later today or tomorrow morning. Until then…

Nureyev. Need I say more?

You Keep Me Hangin’ On

Work at home Friday, and I am exhausted. It was, over all, a pretty good week for me at the office, as I got a lot done and eased back into seeing patients. I have to get caught up on my homework today, so that should be a good thing as long as I can stay focused. I feel rested this morning, which is also enormously helpful; but we’ll see how long that lasts, shall we? Sparky let me sleep a bit more this morning, which was lovely of him, and now I have a few hours to do things around here before I start working this morning. I am not going to overdo it this weekend–trust me on that score, number one on the list for the weekend is relaxation and reading (and it’s a three day weekend at that!) and doing some chores to get the house back under control.

Last night we got caught up on both The Last of Us and Hacks (what a fucking episode! Jean Smart clinched this year’s Emmy, methinks, again), and now we’re going to be looking for something new for the weekend; I’ve heard good things about Overcompensating, so we’ll probably check that out–and Alafair Burke’s TV show, The Better Sister, will be debuting soon. I loved the book–seriously, if you aren’t reading Alafair you need to make better choices in your reading life–and the cast is fantastic. Huzzah!

Yesterday I got an ARC of Laura Lippman’s new novel Murder Takes a Vacation, which has moved up on the TBR list, and a copy of Frank Perez’s Rainbow Fleur de Lis: Essays on Queer New Orleans History. Frank is fantastic and knowledgeable; I also recommend his history of Southern Decadence. People think I know New Orleans? I don’t know shit compared to Frank! Frank is a repository of knowledge about queer New Orleans; in fact, I should consult with him about my 1994 New Orleans book. (adds to list)

I also cleaned the Keurig last night, and yes, my coffee is tasting much better this morning. Whew. I was worried I’d lost my taste for coffee during the illness, which was obviously not the case. Of course the Keurig needed cleaning–it needed cleaning when I got sick, and then it sat there unused for four weeks, and then I didn’t clean it before trying to use it again. Dumb dumb dumb, but I am glad I can enjoy my coffee in the mornings again. Huzzah! I may even try to get some writing done this weekend–at least work on a couple of essays and maybe finish that short story I started.

I’m feeling better, can you tell, Constant Reader? I feel like today just might be a good day, if not the best one I’ve had in a long time.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines to read for a bit before I start work. Have a lovely Friday, and I will check in with you again later.

British Olympic diving team, 2024 Paris

The Tracks of My Tears

Well, we made it to Thursday, didn’t we? Yesterday was a good day. I slept really well the night before, didn’t have to get up early (and Sparky let me sleep an extra hour; he’s started getting into bed and cuddling up to me every morning around four which is nice), and had a nice doctor visit. I lost more weight–honestly!–and am now under 180, which has been since at least the late nineties that I weighed so little. I did stop at Raising Cane’s to get lunch on my way into the office, and it was very good and very filling. It was a slow day at the office, too, so I was able to get a lot of my Admin work caught up as well. I didn’t feel exhausted, either, which was super nice…and of course I work from home tomorrow and Monday is a holiday, so huzzah! I do want to slowly and carefully work on the house some more over the weekend, and keep building up my own strength.

I really hate being feeble, but my body has been through a major trauma and I’m older, so I need to get over my impatience and take it easy–which is hard for me, because I always see it as being lazy (thanks Mom and Dad!) rather than being something necessary. Maybe if I can get on a roll with my reading and start doing some more writing.

I started writing my essay about Gone with the Wind and how it basically is the Bible of Lost Cause Mythology, which also reminded me of an earlier, equally foul (if not more so) book that was also made into a successful film: Thomas Dixon’s The Clansman, which was filmed as Birth of a Nation and preceded Gone with the Wind by a few decades, priming the pump, as it were. (I downloaded those books from Project Gutenberg, but can’t bring myself to read them.) I’ve really come to hate the Lost Cause myth over the years, but have to admit it’s not surprising that it was allowed to develop and become a horrible part of our history (and present) because stubborn Southerners refused to believe they were, or ever could have possibly been, wrong about anythin1g. (Yet they call themselves “the real Americans” now.)2

I slept well again last night, which is great; maybe uninterrupted sleep is going to be a thing for me again and praise Jesus and pass the ammunition, you know? Yesterday was actually a pretty good day, overall. I got a lot of work done at the office, always a plus to be ahead on my work, and we watched two more episodes of The Last of Us after I made dinner. I fell asleep in my chair instead of cleaning the kitchen the way I’d intended to, but I can do that when I get home tonight. Tomorrow is a work-at-home day for me, and of course that glorious three day weekend of rest, relaxation, and reading right behind it. Huzzah! I feel like I’m getting some of my strength back–a little, not a lot–and the process is going to be slow (I need to be more patient) and steady and hopefully by the end of the summer I’ll be back to some semblance of normality and weight.

And on that brief note, I will bring this to a close and head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thor’s Day, Constant Reader, and I will be back at some point soon.

  1. William Bradford Huie–a problematic journalist who committed some serious crimes by “protecting sources” in the Emmett Till case–wrote a book about the civil rights movement in north Alabama in the late 1960s called The Klansman, which showed three different perspectives–and the one from the bigoted police chief who does not believe he is a bigot is probably the best depiction of the Southern bigot mentality I’ve ever read; but the book is horrifically brutal and difficult to read. ↩︎
  2. There are some excellent novels that show the horrors of what the Jim Crow South was like: The Reformatory by Tananarive Due; Time’s Undoing by Cheryl Head, and anything by Wanda M. Morris–all writers you should be reading. And yes, they’re fiction, but so is the Lost Cause myth. ↩︎

It’s the Same Old Song

Monday morning and back to the office with me today. Huzzah? Why not? Yesterday was a low energy day, alas. I didn’t sleep as well Saturday night as I did on Friday, and I think all the shopping and running around depleted all of my batteries and I needed to have a down day to recharge. I also think I overdid it. I don’t feel so great this morning, but it’s my Admin day so I think I can push through and make it. At least there’s a three-day weekend looming on the horizon; and yes, I am going to spend most of it resting, reading, and relaxing. I always get impatient with recovery and try to speed it up, which isn’t very smart. And I’ll have everything delivered; no grocery shopping for me for a while. I am also seeing my doctor Wednesday morning, so I can get some tips on eating and rest and so forth.

I spent most of yesterday in my easy chair, getting caught up on Hacks and The Studio (we also started MurderBot, which is interesting), and I don’t really remember much of last evening–an indication of how tired I was–and I didn’t sleep that great last night, either. Ah, well, these are the challenges that make life interesting.

I had a great ZOOM meeting with my editor yesterday–the book has now been pushed back and will be out in January, sorry, Scotty fans, just a little longer to wait–but I feel a lot more confident that once I am through with this recovery thing I’ll be able to whip it into something I can be proud of and Scotty fans can enjoy. I think my next read–as I try to get my brain unclouded and able to read again–will be a Vicki Barr Stewardess1 kids’ mystery that I’ve not read yet–The Silver Ring Mystery. At least I can use this foggy brain situation to my advantage and get those newsletters about kids’ mysteries done. I may even reread some old Gothics, too–my Kindle is filled with Phyllis A. Whitney and Mary Stewart classics–not to mention all kinds of other things I could reread. There’s also some great history books in there that I can dig into as well. I just never really think about reading on my iPad.

The house is also a mess; I was too tired to do the dishes last night after I made dinner and so left them, hoping I might get to them this morning. But alas and alack, I was much too tired to do so once I was up and so left them for tonight. It doesn’t take much to fill up both sinks, you know, which inevitably makes the kitchen look terrible. I also need to do the floors and the windows, get the filing done, and clean up my workspace. Slowly, slowly, slowly, of course, while taking breaks and resting so I do not wear myself out completely again. I have to swing Uptown to get the mail on the way home tonight–my box grater should be delivered today–and at some point, yes, I need to reorganize the pantry and the cabinets. I’m just going to make a to-do list without a date on it and see how that all goes.

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

  1. Don’t @ me, that is what the series is called. ↩︎

Turn the Beat Around

Nottoway Plantation, one of the beautiful old homes along the River Road north of New Orleans, burned to the ground Thursday.1 But what that lovely old historic home actually was? Just a monument to enslavement and stolen wealth. I also can’t help but hope the backstory to the fire is some Gothic shenanigans, a la Rebecca and Manderly burning to the ground.

Nottoway before
Nottoway after

I’ve certainly come a long way from that kid who was raised to believe in white supremacy and the Lost Cause ideology, haven’t I? My relationship to the South has always been fraught, once I began to read more and understand more and deprogram myself from that horrific grooming as a child. I can remember, though, reading Gone with the Wind when I was ten or eleven for the first time and my hackles being raised by the happy, contented enslaved people and how they were described and how they talked. (I loved the story itself, but the racism was so unrelenting and unending and horrible; I need to do a deconstruction of that book sometime–as well as other “make white people feel better about racism” books.)

Nottoway was a beautiful home, but it was also one of the most monstrous sugar plantations in Louisiana with an excessively brutal history. I am not sorry in the least this horrific place–where they teach nothing about the true history of the place and rent out for weddings and parties for white people (“yes, you too can have a Scarlett O’Hara wedding on an old plantation! So what about the brutal treatment of generations of enslaved people?”). It really was nothing more than a monument to oppression, cruelty, and the evil that men can do.

I started dealing with the ghosts of my own Southern past in Bury Me in Shadows, and this new repurposed book from an old manuscript is also going to deal with race in Alabama, too. I just have to finish this damned Scotty book and get it out of my scalp. New Orleans also has its own dark, bloody and brutal history I have to deal with at some point, too. I was reading a piece about Madame LaLaurie and her abuse of her enslaved people, and wondering how to turn that into a short story–and likewise, my Sherlock story will also have to deal with race, because of the Voodoo Queen. I’m not afraid to address any of these issues, really; as long as I do it and am mindful of the potential for offense and/or getting it wrong (I have a great editor, thank God) and tread carefully. You really can’t write about the South authentically without talking about race.

After I finished working yesterday, Paul and I ran some errands (including Costco) and by the time we got back I was completely worn out and exhausted. I started reading a Dana Girls 2mystery (one of the kids’ series I collect) titled Mystery at the Crossroads, which was originally published in 1954–right around when the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew books began being revised to remove problematic content–and ho boy, is there some problematic content in this book! It’s about “gypsies”–and every handy stereotype about the Romani people is crammed into this book. But it was easy to read, it engaged my brain, and now maybe today I can get back into reading something substantial.

I also rewatched two movies last night–the animated Beauty and the Beast (yes, I get that it’s problematic but I love it) and Jesus Christ Superstar before falling asleep in my chair. Paul woke me at one, and I managed to sleep through the night and this morning I feel rested and good. I have some errands to run today, but I am going to try to just clean and read and rest and relax as much as humanly possible. I am still not 100% recovered from the illness, but I am getting there.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back on the morrow, if not sooner.

  1. And yes, the Lost Cause traitors are weeping publicly of the loss. Since it was one of those destination wedding/party places that glossed over its hideous history…good riddance. ↩︎
  2. I will be writing about the Dana Girls for my newsletter at some point; I want to write about all the kids’ series I read growing up. ↩︎

American Pie

…drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry.

Which also doesn’t make sense; levees are neither wet nor dry, simply an earthen man-made wall to keep water in or out. I do wish I had a twenty, though, for every class where we had to dissect the meaning of “American Pie.”

I feel good today, and alert, and like I can get things done today. I wasn’t tired physically yesterday, but there was some mental fatigue so I didn’t get much writing done. It was literally like banging my head into a brick wall, but I did get almost a thousand words done. We also finished watching The White Lotus, which was good and interesting and all, but was it great? I don’t know, but the acting was on fire, which was terrific. We then spent the rest of the evening watching news clips of the world burning to the ground (my favorite are the tears of the MAGA grifters losing money now; sucks to be you, live by the MAGA die by the MAGA), and ironically, I started thinking about the book and the closed door in my brain that had been constraining and holding back everything I was trying to do with this book suddenly burst open in my head and I know exactly what to do with this book going forward. Huzzah! Now to get the words down…

As you may well also remember, I am researching the 1970s (mostly the early to mid) for my next book, and yesterday I went down the wormhole of short-shorts for men. The 1970s wasn’t maybe the best time for men’s fashions, but for the first time in a long time men’s clothes became more showy, and everything was super-tight, to show off the bodies. (Sadly, most men still neither worked out much–and those who did, often skipped leg day so they really didn’t have much of an ass to show off in their tight jeans.) Shorts were short–sometimes barely covering the full butt cheeks, and those ragged strings everyone had in their cut-offs that were barely more than a square cut today. It was a tragic decade for fashion–for most styles of everything, really. Cars were big and ugly, so was furniture, and the middle class’s tract homes all looked the same with the dark shag carpeting, the wood paneling (even on some cars!), and linoleum. And the memories these forays into research wormholes bring back! And the nice thing is those memories aren’t painful anymore? So what if I didn’t have any real friends because most everyone was afraid of fag cooties? I read a lot of books, made up a lot of stories, and was always able to entertain myself so I was never lonely. Sometimes I would just pick out a kids’ mystery to reread. I didn’t leave the house much, really, other than for school or the occasional shopping foray with my mom until we started going back to church (a tale for another time). But I didn’t get into trouble, I kept to myself, and it didn’t bother me that I was solitary because…my natural default is solitary. Whether solitude was meant to be my default, or not minding being alone developed it that way or not, is a mystery for the ages.

And now that I’ve grown up into a published author, I find that I really do prefer solitude. It’s lovely to get together with people I care about, but…much as I enjoy that (and I do), I wouldn’t miss it terribly if it went away tomorrow and I spent the rest of my life as a hermit in my apartment. Oh, probably enforced solitude would probably not be my thing either, but it’s something one can dream about, at any rate.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have yourself a lovely little Tuesday, and I’ll be back to check in with you again tomorrow for Pay the Bills Wednesday!

Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)

Saturday morning and I have a couple of errands to do this morning. I need to go by the bank (I haven’t made a deposit in person in eons) and I have to swing by the grocery store. Sigh. I really didn’t want to leave the house today, but here we are. It’s also a struggle these days to get through as we go through and experience the collapse of the American experiment in self-rule. I think another significant part of our history that isn’t taught the way it should be is we aren’t taught about how many Tories there were in the colonies during the lead up to and aftermath of the Revolution. We aren’t taught New England threatened to secede during the War of 1812, or that there were people on both sides of the Civil War1 that sympathized with the other side; North and South weren’t monoliths the way we are taught. We aren’t taught about how many Americans were Nazi sympathizers and isolationists before Pearl Harbor, using the slogan “America First”–so you see why I have always raised a cynical eyebrow whenever anyone uses that slogan; it was tied to Nazi sympathizers to me.

Watching the collapse of our country is challenging and more than a little bit depressing. It is terrible that just as I approach the age of retirement and the final chapter of my life…well, the retirement may turn out to be involuntary, as my clinic’s funding is definitely on the chopping block, Social Security is about to be looted and destroyed, and I don’t want to even look at the paltry 401k, which has also probably evaporated. No job and no retirement funds is going to be awesome when I turn 64. Paul got the notice from the NEH to not bother applying for grant funding, as it’s all been cut, so his job may not survive this, either–no more festivals in the spring. So, miss me with “we need to be nice to MAGA voters now finding out”–fuck them now and forever. I will never forgive them, and their suffering lightens mine. You want to embrace them, be my guess. Me? I will never stop laughing and pointing, let alone mocking them and enjoying their tears. My patience has worn out for ignorant haters, sorry not sorry– and as they so eloquently put it, “fuck your feelings.”

Yesterday was a nice day, overall. I got up, had a virtual meeting at work, and then did my Admin work before running some errands. I got that done, and then Paul and I made a Costco run and spent an insane amount of money. After getting home, lugging everything into the house and putting it all away, I was tired. I collapsed into my chair for a while as Paul went upstairs to work on the NEH grant–but got the email so didn’t have to bother for the rest of the evening and we dove further into The Residence, which I am greatly enjoying. Uzo Adoba is fantastic as Cordelia Copp, the world’s greatest detective, and it’s very well cast, high production values, and the writing is quite crisp. The chief usher at the White House (the divine Giancarlo Esposito) is murdered during a state dinner, and Cordelia is brought in to solve the murder. I think what’s most interesting is the divide between the White House domestic staff v. the White House political staff; the domestics work for the House, the political staff comes and goes. I’d never really thought much about the staff of the residence, so it’s an interesting look at how that all works, and it’s very cleverly structured. Highly recommend.

I do have some errands to do today, and a lot of straightening up to do as well. I want to get some reading and writing in this morning, so I can go to the gym tomorrow (I know, right?) and get some more done. I’ve been letting things slide a lot lately, which probably means I am depressed, which isn’t surprising, given the state of the world and everything else going on in my life. I think there’s an element of why bother with this book, to be honest, which is counter-productive and quite self-destructive, but it’s hard to be productive when your default is almost always pessimism. I always knew Republicans were working very hard to destroy everything decent about this country (unfettered capitalism is sociopathic in nature), but I never dreamed they might actually succeed. To paraphrase Game of Thrones: “Whenever I wonder why the Republicans would do something so counter-productive to democracy, I like to play a little game: what is the worst reason they would want to do this?”

Littlefinger was right, even if he did end up with his throat slit for his treachery.

Yesterday I also realized that one of the great American traditions, going back to colonial days, of evading paying duties and tariffs was smuggling. I used to love to read about Colonial smugglers (John Hancock was one), and some great fiction was built up around smuggling. I’ve always thought the years of Prohibition (and alcohol smuggling) in New Orleans would be an interesting time to write about. That decade saw the rise of Huey Long to power in Louisiana, and there are some fantastic stories about that post-Storyville time here. Jean Lafitte was a pirate, too–but he was also a very successful smuggler. But again, one of the great problems of New Orleans/Louisiana research is going down wormholes and sidebars–my ADHD does not matters at all in this regard; I do remember wanting to write about “Mrs. Officer,” the first woman cop in New Orleans, who was hired because they needed a woman to search and interrogate criminal women, which was a problem during Storyville days. I mean, what a great decade to research and write about! Imagine what “Mrs. Officer”2 endured in terms of misogyny as the only woman cop in an era where women couldn’t vote.

There’s also a protest today scheduled in New Orleans, as well as around the country. I’m hoping to make it, it just depends on how tired I am after getting things done this morning. I feel pretty good right now, but that also doesn’t mean I won’t flag later, either.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you most likely tomorrow morning.

  1. This is a classic example of why I say we don’t teach history properly (which will end up being a longer-form essay for my newsletter at some point). There were plenty of Tories during the American Revolution. There were Southern sympathizers in the North and Unionists in the South–I knew about the North, but whenever I’d come across that about the South I figured it was after-the-fact apologia, excusing Southern whites for their inhumanity. But over the least few years as I’ve done more deep dives into Alabama history, and hearing more old family stories, I’ve come to realize it was actually true. Erik Larson discusses this in more detail in his The Demons of Unrest, which I do recommend. ↩︎
  2. SHe was always referred to as “Mrs. Officer,” which also makes a great title. ↩︎

What a Fool Believes

I’ve always been a fool, but my brain has always worked to convince me that is not the truth. (Spoiler: it is. I am constantly amazed at how foolish I am, or have been, which is one of the many reasons I second-guess myself all the damned time.) I often deceive myself that I handle things better than I do, and it seems I often don’t have the necessary distance from things to evaluate them properly.

I finally wrote about my friendship with Dorothy Allison yesterday on my newsletter; if you are so inclined you can click there and read it (you can also subscribe while you’re there, or not, it’s up to you). She died right after the election, and I never like to share my grief publicly (still fighting that “never bleed in public” training from childhood), because it’s personal to me. Doing the reading on Sunday, I realized I was finally in a place where I could mourn her publicly. Likewise, I didn’t want to do the last-minute reading in honor of Felice Picano because it was too soon. I’ll write about Felice one day, probably this summer, when someone or something will remind me of him and I’ll know it’s time. I hate being at the point in life when you start losing friends with greater regularity. That’s the thing they never tell you about getting old–being older means getting used to loss, and really, that’s about it.

Yesterday was a decent day. It was slow at clinic so I got a lot of my admin work caught up, but I wasn’t all there, if that makes any sense. I wasn’t tired, but just felt…drained. Not sure what that was about, so I came home and did chores, watched LSU win the regional semifinal by breaking 198.00 again (GEAUX TIGERS!), so they’ll be competing in the final tomorrow, and we started watching The Residence, which got off to an interesting start before I went to bed early. I feel pretty good this morning, have some work to do here, and then later will run errands. I mean, I feel as good as I can giving the fact that retirement is beginning to look like it won’t be an option for me ever–and what is most likely is involuntary retirement because of funding cuts. Thanks again, MAGA voters, for giving me another reason to despise you with every fiber of my being–and other people might forgive you at some point, but I never fucking will, and I’ll go to my grave hating and despising you fucking racist and homophobic pieces of shit. The only thing that is getting me through this stress is the grim satisfaction of knowing they’re suffering even worse and they know it’s their own fault. I will never stop belittling and mocking them as long as I have breath in my body. Staying positive in the age of negativity is definitely a challenge…especially now that Wall Street has cratered and we are on the brink of a world-wide depression that is no one’s fault but our own.

I also realized that today’s title really works, because I still cling to the belief that somehow we’ll survive this illegitimate regime and it won’t get that terribly bad. I’ve been bankrupt before, I can live through it again, I suppose. But this is what the Republicans have been pushing for since the Reagan misadministration, which I’ve been saying for fucking decades, only to be dismissed as lightly as Cassandra on the walls of Troy (I really would love to write from her perspective; I can imagine no curse greater than being able to see the future only to have no one believe you. No wonder she went mad)? There have been few, if any, good Republicans since the party was overhauled when everyone who’d really experienced the Great Depression1 was dead and couldn’t remind everyone of the policies that led to that disaster. And here we are, almost to the hundred year anniversary of the stock market crash and the depression that followed.

Americans never learn from their history and always repeat it. We are not a nation of smart people.

And on that truly sad note, I’ll head into the spice mines. Have a great day, Constant Reader, and I will definitely check in on you either later or tomorrow.

  1. Worth mentioning that the collapse of our economy led to the same thing, only worse, around the world, which led to the rise of fascism. In true American narcissism, the Great Depression is always taught as an American issue, rather than a global one–another way history is taught incorrectly. ↩︎

Knock on Wood

Thursday and my last day in the office for the week. I can go in a little later than usual this morning, so I am sipping my coffee and eating my morning slice of marble coffee cake (from Rouses, and I love it) and slowly trying to get it together this morning before I hit the road for the office. I did some work last night, and some chores when I got home, but feel a little tired this morning–moving kind of slow here at the junction–but I can come straight home from the office tonight and I am going to get some work done tonight. Tomorrow is my work-at-home, and I have a department meeting to get through also. I can live with it. I think we’re also going to Costco this weekend (got to stock up before prices start rising uncontrollably, thanks again, MAGA trash voters), and I really need to pull it together for myself. The auction is still making money (the auction is closed but the donate button is still active), which is super-awesome, and very uplifting. Obviously, it doesn’t mean everyone who donated and everyone who bid are actually allies through and through, but it’s something, and I am not going to be cynical about raising over 300% of our goal. Woo-hoo, way to go, everyone! A bright light shining through these steadily darkening times.

It was very windy yesterday and we are having high winds again today, which is odd. It’s also much warmer than it usually is around this time of year, which is also odd, and definitely problematic for the looming summer. Sigh, and everything is going to be more expensive, including power (thanks again, MAGA!). The two grocery runs I made this week came out to over $140 combined, and I didn’t really get all that much, which completely sucks. I was tired when I got home from work yesterday, and wrote for a little while until I got stuck. I still got in over a thousand words, so I am calling that a win.

This week, a recovery from the festivals week, also involved the auction–not to mention the easy to see it coming second Great Depression–so it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster and now that all the adrenaline has died off, I am a bit worn down, which is why I think I am physically tired and a little mentally fatigued. The day is going to be relatively easy, overall; we’re not busy in the clinic today and I should be able to get a lot of paperwork and admin stuff taken care of, and I get to go home an hour early, which is terrific. Sparky will certainly appreciate it, and I want to get some chores done tonight. I need to do another load of laundry, and the dishes, pick up around the apartment, and take out garbage and so forth. Sigh. We also have a department meeting tomorrow morning that I can join remotely. Sigh.

I also have to get back to reading my current reads. I was enjoying both The Get Off and Moonraker, so I want to get them done soon. Moonraker is more interesting in the juxtaposition between the tone and tenor of the books vs the silliness of the movies. It is very much of its time, and the whole “gentlemenly” approach to the spy genre is snobbish. classist, and yet still interesting in a weird, classist elitist kind of way; the whole gentility thing they still have across the pond is something we’ve never quite adapted completely, which isn’t a bad thing. It’s been tried before, obviously, and some are still trying; the Boston Club and other organizations like it dot New Orleans–because of Carnival krewes. Carnival krewes were, from the very beginning, nothing more than an extension/adaptation of the men’s clubs in London, which I will definitely need to talk about when I write my essay about revisiting the novel.

And on that groggy note, I am heading into the spice mines. May your Thursday be free of drama and full of joy, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back on the morrow.

Makin’ It

I’ve always felt that Tuesdays are worse than Mondays. Sure, it sucks to get up on Monday morning and go back to the office, but at least you’re coming off the weekend. Tuesday means you’re not even halfway through the week and you’ve already worked the day before. Horror of horrors! I felt this way even in high school–which is where and when I started wishing my life away, as my mom always used to say. Of course, she didn’t start saying that until she stopped working and became, for want of a better word, a housewife. Such an ugly and weird sounding word, isn’t it? But it’s better than “tradwife,” which just might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard–and the whole “tradwife values” thing just kind of turns my stomach ever so slightly.

I do want to write about one, of course. I also want to write about one of those horribly creepy “boymoms.” Straight people are so weird…

But this morning I feel rested and good. I ran some errands after work last night, which was not as painful as I might have expected, and I have to run one tonight when I leave the office. I finished revising my short story and send it in (it’s for a queer crime anthology called Crime Ink), which felt really good (the story is an excerpt from Never Kiss a Stranger called “The Rhinestone”), and I did work on the book a little around Sparky’s intense neediness. I think Paul is moving into the Monteleone tomorrow, so after tonight I’ll be home alone with a super needy cat, which will be challenging. I also need to figure out my schedule for the weekend’s Festivals. I am moderating a panel for the Pinckley Prize tenth anniversary celebration, I know, and I have to do the anthology launch Saturday night, and I am in the Dorothy Allison tribute reading. There’s also a panel on Sunday I am on, and of course both the opening and closing parties. Sigh. I get tired just thinking about it, you know?

But it’ll be fun and invigorating intellectually, and it’s always inspiring to be around wonderful people who love books and writing.

Remember the author I talked about who created a firestorm by writing and publishing that dreadful book where the man fell in love with his best friend’s three-year-old daughter but waits until she was legal before doing anything (as though the pedophilic grooming wasn’t bad enough)? She was arrested yesterday and charged (in Australia) for possession of, and intent to distribute, child pornography. The copies of her own book was the evidence they needed for the arrest! I don’t know what the laws are in Australia, but quite frankly, arguing that it’s a “slippery slope” to be arrested for “dark romance” writing? Dark romance actually requires consent, otherwise it’s rape. You’re trying to ban queer books in the US, yet people are trying to defend the principle of free speech about a book that is 100% about grooming? Yeah, miss me with that. Child rape is child rape, period; and I think the fact so many people missed the real point of Lolita and think it’s a “romance” is why no one should be writing about child rape like it’s just another style of “dark” romance.

And who would ever think to themselves, “I’m going to write a dark romance about grooming!”

Someone I wouldn’t let around kids, that’s who.

Not all speech is protected–which no one seems to understand, which isn’t surprising since they don’t understand their own protected right to free speech and what precisely that means. We really are the dumbest country. This whole “let’s share classified intelligence with a reporter in a group chat” thing would be laughable if it wasn’t so fucking terrifying. IMAGINE EISENHOWER SENDING THE D-DAY PLANS TO A REPORTER, or Truman accidentally telling the Washington Post about the plans to use the atomic bomb on Japan the day before?

Americans have never appreciated our system, or they’d have learned how it works better when they were younger. (I wish I had a quarter for every time I had to explain the Electoral College to smart people–or people I’d thought were smart previously–in 2000 I’d have retired years ago.) So, we kind of have the government we deserve right now.

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

Screenshot