Monday and back to the office with me this morning. I’m now recognizing that I need to appreciate every day I get to go into work because my job could easily go away at any moment, with a traitor in the White House who hates everything and everyone and has handed everything over to an unelected foreign illegal immigrant billionaire who essentially bought our country. Yay, tyranny!1 The Founding Fathers would be so proud. The American experiment had a decent run. And again, apologies to our former allies. DO your worst, we deserve it–even those who didn’t vote for it, because we were unable to stop it, and it goes back way further than 2015 and the ride down the golden escalator (an apt metaphor–our worship of the wealthy was literally a ride down to hell paved with gold). We didn’t start paying attention soon enough, complacent with our rights and our Constitution and our mythology that our institutions were strong enough to hold–despite being under steady and regular assault for the last forty years. (This really got going under Reagan, for the record. He was the first step on the path that led us here–the first cosplay Christian divorced celebrity to win the White House.)
I am a little groggy this morning, as getting up at six after not having to for the weekend isn’t an easy transition anymore. Damned disorienting blizzard, anyway. But I had a good day yesterday. I managed to get some writing done (yay!) and some stuff done around the house as well as did some reading. It was a a lovely relaxing day, and we finished watching season two of The Recruit, which turned out to be a lot of fun. I definitely recommend. The lead actor is terrific, and he’s also very good looking, which doesn’t hurt (I’m shallow, okay?). But there are so many of these international affairs/espionage shows now that it’s hard to tell them apart anymore, really. I do enjoy them, too–even if they are pretty much from the same cookie cutter and there’s always insane fight scenes and gun battles and things–which goes back to my love of Robert Ludlum novels and their intricate plotting. (I admire nothing more than an intricately plotted novel–see also Carl Hiassen and P. G. Wodehouse.) I had always wanted to try writing a spy adventure–spinning Colin out into his own series–but I haven’t traveled internationally very much and showing Colin working outside of New Orleans would be kind of weird. I have one idea I’ve been sitting on for a very long time for Colin; maybe someday.
The Super Bowl is also this weekend, and two major arteries for me to get home have been shut down–Poydras and Howard Avenues. I guess I’ll just have to go uptown and run errands this week on the way home rather than going straight home. Yay. And then it will be Carnival, and then…augh. I really need to get cracking on my writing. I know, it’s shocking that I’m having trouble focusing while living through an existential threat. I guess I need to really just push all of that out of my mind while focusing on writing as an act of activism. Writing queer stories has always been important, a way of shedding light on what it’s like to live and operate and love on the margins of society and culture. I’ve never spent a lot of time thinking about the political aspect of breathing life into queer characters and their stories, my focus is writing the best narrative that I can. But showing queer people existing, showing that they are normal and want the same things everything else does, is inherently an activist act when you live in a homophobic country2.
I don’t know why I am letting this bother me so much. I mean, after all, we have the Democratic Party fighting for us rolling over and playing dead but still, somehow, asking for money. Never again. Your party has died because of its inefficacy and its cowardice in the face of a threat. You’ve been cowards since 1980. “Oh no Fox might say something mean!” isn’t the position of strength we’ve been asking you to model for us for over forty years. Bravo for not rising to fight the threat to democracy–but your social media posts are really showing your constituents what you really think about us and how much you care about us…by doing absolutely fucking nothing. And when you do, you’ll simply blame us for not fighting hard enough or not donating enough money or something, I don’t know. Of course, the legacy media has also failed us completely, and continue to fail us on the daily, too. I no longer believe anything that comes from our legacy corporate media, frankly. I guess the irony of the legacy media becoming actual fake news after years of being accused of it will be more appreciated at some point in the future, I suppose.
Ironically, my idea for a dystopian novel set in the aftermath of the collapse of the US hasn’t been trying to invade and overwhelm my creativity. I guess when you’re watching as a country jerks through its final death throes writing about the collapse of civilization isn’t an intellectual creative pursuit anymore for me.
And on that cheery note, I am heading back into the spice mines. Have a great Monday, and I’ll be back tomorrow most likely.
To Mitch McConnell’s eternal shame and disgrace. ↩︎
Miss me with the “not all straight people” bullshit, thank you very much. ↩︎
Ah, Sunday in the Lost Apartment and how are you doing, Constant Reader? I slept pretty well last night, didn’t want to get out of the comfortable bed this morning, but nevertheless, here I am, having already downed one piece of coffee cake and cup of coffee and about to make a second cup. I don’t feel completely awake just yet, but I am hoping by the time I finish writing this I’ll be all warmed up to get back to my writing. I did some yesterday, about a thousand words or so, and I need to get strapped in and back to work this morning. Yesterday was an okay day; I didn’t get as much written as I would have liked, but I got some writing done. I didn’t read much of my book yesterday. Paul was off getting another tattoo and brought home a pizza from Midway on Freret (which is amazingly good, for the record). He didn’t get home until late, so we watched the first two episodes of The Recruit (there are so many of these similar type shows we’ve watched that we aren’t really sure which one is which, and the plots all kind of blur together, but they’re entertaining enough to watch), and I was tired and went to bed. I did also run my errands yesterday as well, and was very tired when the second episode finished; I was dozing off during it, which was why I thought it best to just go ahead and go on to bed and be done with the day, which is always a good thing now that the timeline of my life is now in the “collapse of the country” final stage. Woo-hoo! Just what I always wanted and dreamed of.
I was thinking yesterday–I saw something somewhere on-line about people “needing to prepare to live in a dystopia”–and it hit me that I already lived in one; New Orleans after Katrina, with so much of the city in ruins and so much not open and so few people here. It was so eerily quiet in those days, a weird stillness that seemed so very wrong, and adapting to schedule my days around when things would be open because if you didn’t pay attention you could miss your window of opportunity to get groceries, of which there wasn’t much to choose from. Same with the gym, the post office, places to eat–there also was a shortage of workers, so that was another drawback to businesses opening. I considered getting a part time job on top of the ones I already had at the time, just to help out…I never did. That was also when I was probably in the best physical condition of my life, too–the only thing I had control over was my body, so I controlled it as much as possible. Good times, right? Sigh.
It’s also Black History Month, which isn’t being celebrated by the government this year since, you know, the country is being run by racists now–well, openly racist and proud of it trash–and are doing everything they can to take us back to the days when being queer was a crime, anyone racialized had no rights when it came to white people, and women were second-class citizens who were completely responsible for home and family (despite the fact that women have always been in the workplace as working professionals–but they were limited to what jobs they could have: secretary, teacher, librarian, waitress, flight attendant, etc.). I know it’s difficult for white people to read Black fiction because they aren’t used to not being the heroic center of the story1; but reading books by voices different than those that cater directly to you is necessary because you need to see other perspectives that are also valid. Works by Wanda Morris and Tananarive Due bring the reality of being Black during Jim Crow to vivid horrific life; I am still reeling from the horrific truth of both Due’s The Reformatory and Colson Whitehead’s Nickel Boys. I can’t encourage people enough to read Black authors, and not just for Black History Month, which is performative support as opposed to actual support–like your rainbows in June that disappear on the 30th, not to be seen again until June 1 of the next year. I appreciate even the performative support, honestly, but it doesn’t fool me that it goes very deep, either.
We all really just want to be left alone to live our lives in peace, you know?
But people who’ve never been oppressed will claim to be oppressed and play victim–how many times have we seen that play out? I’ve seen straight white women call gay men pedophiles (including me) publicly on social media, and then cry and make themselves the victim for the outraged reaction from the gay men. Yes, bitch, I’m the bad one for blocking you for calling me a pedophile. Drink bleach, bitch. I don’t forgive or forget homophobia; it’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back every single time. There’s never any coming back from that–and microaggressions also add up until I can’t make excuses for people anymore–and another life lesson of the last five years have been that even a microaggression has to be called out. If it talks like a homophobe and acts like a homophobe…yeah, they are inevitably a homophobe…and yes, even people who think they are allies can be homophobes. I never wanted to be THAT gay, you know, the militant constantly pointing out how offensive people are being and so forth…but why protect the delicate feelings of snowflakes who clearly don’t give a flying fuck about how I–or any other queer–feel?
I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of the schadenfreude of watching those racist white bitches who gleefully wouldn’t vote for the highly qualified Black woman finding out they are also DEI hires, that they were the primary beneficiary from equal opportunity laws, and now they can just put up with the sexist jokes and the not getting paid the same and not getting promoted that turned working women into feminists in the first place. What’s even more interesting, at least to me, is that the anti-feminist women (Phyllis Schlafly, Ann Coulter, and others of their ilk) who benefited from feminist activism worked to undermine their success–and undermined all other women in the process. I really wish someone would just say to Ann Coulter when she’s bloviating (hilariously, MAGA hates her and the Left will never go anywhere near her, so who precisely is her current audience? Racists who hate Trump? Huge audience there, Ann, well done.) “shut up, no one cares what you think, you’re just a woman who couldn’t get into an Ivy for law school.” (Which is why she hates the Ivys, right there. There’s a lot wrong with the Ivys and the public perception of their ‘greatness’–but not letting Coulter in is worthy of applause.) The hilarity that they also voted to preserve their abortion rights but voted for Trump–you just can imagine how fucking smug they felt in the voting booth–who might ban abortion nation-wide with an executive order made me roll my eyes at the mental gymnastics those smug racist misogynist skanks had to perform to rationalize their votes.
White women have always propped up white supremacy because they “believed” that it protected them. I would even go so far as to say it also afforded them a taste of power that they didn’t get to feel otherwise in their lives (Southern women really lean into that ‘steel magnolia’ thing, which has always bugged the shit out of me. Just say you’re proud to be trash and be done with it), because in antebellum times they had power over their enslaved (check out They Were Her Property sometime) and after emancipation, they were still “above” freed Blacks, even with the power of life or death over the men. (Louisiana’s bizarre inheritance laws, which I researched again for A Streetcar Named Murder, have everything to do with rich men down here having both white families and biracial ones; so they couldn’t disinherit the white family in favor of the biracial one…which was enough of a problem that it had to be legislated here.)
Ugh.
And on that somber sad note, I will head into the spice mines and get to work. Have a lovely Sunday, and I may be back later. One never can be sure.
Precious delicate little snowflakes that they are. ↩︎
It feels weird to be up this early this morning, with it dark outside and Sparky whining for breakfast. But it’s a return to normality, after a planned three day holiday weekend turned into a bizarre week of working at home for about eight hours total. I feel very disoriented, too. I’ve lost track of days and dates and so forth, and am running very short on time for a lot of things I could have either gotten done or made more progress on than I did over the last week. Ah, well, c’est la vie. It’s warm this morning–in the sixties!–and it looks like our weather is returning to normal, for now. Good, because I don’t want to deal with any more snow this year. Last week was fun and novel; it would get old and tired very quickly. I didn’t have trouble getting up this morning, either. My shoulder still feels a bit weird this morning, so I think I may let it have another day of rest. I also think I might need to rest more between sets; I still try to go as quickly as I can (a mindset I need to break, everything takes time, alas, but at least I am identifying old behaviors that need breaking) but need to stop doing that because it’s overtaxing the arm a bit at the shoulder joint, which isn’t much fun. Still adapting to the aftermath of that injury, I guess, which is annoying as fuck. But it’s also another reminder than I’m older and my body doesn’t react to exercise the way it used to, so everything must go slowly.
I am finally being forced to learn patience, and it is very difficult for an old dog to learn new tricks.
And I am sure that being at work today is going to be more than a little challenging.
But I don’t feel tired the way I usually do, and I feel like I’m going to be able to get quite a bit done today, once I get to the office and remember where we are on everything. Yay. This unexpected week away from the office really was kind of a reset in a way; I feel more rested and ready to deal with everything that I personally need to get back to work on. I have gotten so behind, and even this weekend I was still in a bit of snow stupor and didn’t get as much done as I would have liked this weekend, as usual. But…maybe now I can get my act together? Stranger things have happened. I also started reading She Who Was No More, and I have to say, I fucking love this French style of writing that was so heavily influenced by film noir and writers like James M. Cain. It may even work for another book idea I have, which is even more exciting–but I really do need to finish this Scotty before I even should be thinking in terms of future work.
Heavy heaving sigh. I’ll probably finish this later. Clearly, I’ve not taken my pills yet today because I am already feeling anxious, and the coffee isn’t helping. Yes, I will finish when I get home from work tonight.
Well, here we are on Tuesday morning, and I think I was a little overly optimistic about how I felt yesterday morning. It wasn’t like I was fatigued or anything, but I was very unfocused all day, and easily distracted–so my ADHD was kicking into gear yesterday. I didn’t remember to take my medications until well into the day, and I think that had a lot to do with it. I just could not finish a task once I’d started it without being interrupted, and then after the interruption I’d forget what I was originally doing in the first place. It was…challenging, to say the least, and I was very tired when I got home. We ended up starting Murder in a Small Town, which had some moments, but I wasn’t too terribly interested in continuing with it again…I was under the impression it was one of those series where the case took up the entire season, but no–it’s murder of the week, and again–the crime rate in the town is about to go up exponentially. And while the season-long stories sometimes feel a bit padded, they’re more involving. Producers/writers: watch Harlan Coben’s series adapted from his books; these stand alone episodic crime stories are so great. Now send me a thousand dollars for the excellent advice on how to improve your shows.
Since the swearing-in of President Greg Stillson last week, the dismantling of our country for spare parts to sell off has been incredibly overwhelming, and I don’t blame people for shutting down and not knowing what to do. It’s also been shocking to see how many theoretically decent people have decided to throw away said decency (which was clearly always a facade; anyone who could ally themselves with this criminal administration, for whatever reason, is a quisling and a collaborationist at best, and pure evil at worst) and suck up to power. It’s always disappointing when people you may have been a fan of turn out to be enormous disappointments; which is one of the many reasons I don’t think anyone should idolize anyone…because no matter what, they will always disappoint you. I was never a particular fan of Jewel, but I didn’t hate her or have much of an opinion about her. She never crossed my mind. But she chose to dance before the corrupt court, showing everyone in the country who she was, what she stood for, and what her values and beliefs are. I guess she had a big queer fanbase and didn’t like the backlash she was getting for cosplaying Leni Reifenstahl and decided to release a video apologizing to the “people she hurt, especially the LGBTQ+ community”–you know, the non-apology garbage people when a really bad decision blows up in their face, because they are so egotistical they think they can explain why they committed the offense in the first place, and pat them on the back for their noble sacrifice.
I mean, seriously. I can’t with people like that, you know?
So when a friend on a social media account reposted the Jewel “not apology” bullshit, I commented. I only did so because she specifically mentioned MY community in with her bullshit faux-ally shit, and I am sorry, I will not let this pass without comment. I replied with well, this gay man wants nothing to do with either her or her apology or her fake-ass straight white woman tears. You showed us who you are and we believe you. Live with it.
I did this in, of all place, the parking lot of the grocery store–I’d gotten some mention-alerts, so I was looking through them and then went back to the home page, where I saw the Jewel post. While I was in the checkout line, waiting my turn, I pulled out my phone and did what I always do–check my email, look at the mentions, scroll if there’s nothing else to do. I had an alert that I had been tagged or replied to on the social media platform, but when I tried to see the response to my Jewel comment, there was nothing available to see. That’s odd, I thought, and put my phone back away because it was my turn.
When I got home and put the groceries away was when I saw that someone had screen-capped it and shared it with me….because the woman had posted it, turned off replies, and hid it from me.
What the actual hell?
I didn’t think trolling could possibly get more pathetic and sad than it already was; but now I know there’s an even lower level for them to take an escalator down to. I mean, all trolling is performative, but imagine being so performative and then hiding it all from the person you’re going after? What a fucking coward, seriously.
I also spent about twenty-four hours wondering why she called me a “gay back man,” because I am really oblivious and very literal. I honestly thought it was some kind of “bottom-shaming” you-take-it-up-the-ass douche-bagger homophobic way, and didn’t put it together until the next day when I was telling Paul about it. (In my defense, he did also say “what the hell is a gay back man?” at first.) He figured it out: I said straight white woman, so the troll said gay black man but made a typo, and since “back” is a word, autocorrect didn’t alert her.
I mean, I’m not offended when someone thinks I’m Black. I really don’t; but this also sent my mind wandering down another path. I mean, I want to be prepared the next time it happens. It did make me start wondering–I’ve always wondered if the way people have treated me over the years has been homophobic when they aren’t nice or friendly or bare-bones professional. I’ve long accepted that my gayness can be seen from space. But was there something else at play, too?
Saturday morning and here we are in the Lost Apartment as New Orleans slowly shakes off it’s blizzard break and returns to what passes as normalcy around here. As I look outside this morning after sleeping really late this morning (I was tired, okay?), the snow is almost completely gone. Yesterday after work I did go to the gym, and we did go to Costco, so I was pretty worn out when that was all completed and didn’t get anything else much done once we got home. We got one of those pre-made Costco pizzas (they really are quite good) which made for an easy dinner, which we ate while watching LSU Gymnastics; they were off last night, alas–but were also missing some of their best athletes. We’d started watching Prime Target on Apple Plus (queer main character? Oh hell to the yes, thank you very much), which we are also enjoying, but…I don’t think we watched anything other than news clips after the meet ended and before we went to bed? I also did my usual Friday chores around here, too–yay, me. Today I need to write and I need to run some errands. I wanted to go make groceries today, but am thinking I may need to wait for a few more days, after the stores are able to take deliveries and restock their shelves; even Costco looked a little picked over yesterday–we still spent over four hundred, and I forgot to look at the price of eggs–and there wasn’t too much traffic, despite the highways and interstate still being closed. I am pretty sure the city is back to what passes for normal around here today. Its cold outside, but sunny and the sky is blue, so whatever bits of snow that are left from the blizzard (it still feels weird saying that, you know?) will most likely melt off today.
It’s been quite a year already, and it’s not even fucking February yet. 2024 seems like it was last century already. This weird past week, though, as I said the other day, was a much needed respite, a forced period of rest for a city still reeling from starting the year with a terrorist attack, with both the Super Bowl and Carnival still on the horizon. I feel like I also kind of needed it, myself–I feel a lot more rested than I did last weekend, of course, and I do think returning to the office on Monday is a nice return to my usual routine. I need to work on the book this weekend as well as some other writing projects that need doing, and of course there are always chores to be done. I did the bed linens and two loads of laundry yesterday, got the sink all cleared out, and finally was able to do some more cleaning around here, too. Tomorrow I’ll walk back over to the gym for another workout–my shoulder and arm are tight and sore a lot more these days, so I am taking it easy for another week before advancing the workout to the next step. I am getting some exercise in, I am burning calories, and so my physical goals should be much easier to achieve this year than in years past. I am feeling more centered than I have in years.
It was also delightful this morning to see that Madison Keys won the Australian Open; good on you, girl! The US even had a man in the semi-finals, too. I’ve not been as big a tennis fan lately as I used to be; the Williams sisters and Rafa retiring left a big gap, and I don’t know many of the players as well as I used to. I guess I’m kind of a homer when it comes to international sport…but it just seems like there’s not been any newer players coming along with the kind of charismatic star power the Williams sisters (and Rafa) had. I really don’t follow figure skating as much as I used to, either; Paul and I primarily focus on US ice dance, of all things; who knew that would gradually become our strongest discipline? We’d even forgotten that US Nationals were this weekend (congratulations to Amber Glenn for winning again), but now that we do know, we can actually watch this weekend (thank God for streaming, right?).
The world continues to burn to the ground all around us, and what else is there left to say? The surrender of everyone to MAGA, from corporations to celebrities to the press, the capitulation in advance, went exactly the way it did in Germany in the 1930s. That’s yet another reason why I think being a writer in these trying times means being an activist. My books, my stories, about queer life through a crime or horror lens, kind of are important in that regard, and as I get older and I become more and more progressive (yes, I am going the opposite direction of the trope that everyone becomes more conservative as they age; hey, don’t blame my generation for the fucking Boomers who sold out everything they believed in after college) I find myself dancing around things in my work. And yes, I do want MAGA voters to suffer, and am saving all my empathy and sympathy for the victims of MAGA voters. I have no sympathy for mediocrities who need the state to made them feel better about their snowflake loser selves, and laughed excitedly about how they were fucking us over. I’m supposed to not want them to suffer the consequences of their actions? People who enjoy the suffering of others and voted for inhumanity? You can miss me with that kind of moral superiority, and if that’s you, just because you think you’re morally superior doesn’t mean you actually are.
And your education certainly doesn’t make you more intelligent and more moral than anyone else. All that means is you knew how to perform for professors by giving them what they wanted, kissing their ass, and not questioning them–which I did all the time, earning their enmity, and the little Napoleons in college English departments aren’t very interested in opinions other than their own correct ones, and punished me accordingly. (I have more publications than all of my professors, across all disciplines.) I don’t like to talk myself up (sing out, Louise!) because it seems arrogant and egocentric, and I don’t like those parts of my personality very much, but yes, I do have more publications than all of my instructors I’ve had throughout the course of my life, so…forgive me for interpreting essays, stories and books differently than a boring Lit professor’s1 (or writing teacher’s) dogmatic devotion to closing their eyes to any new interpretation. I’ve also always felt that you don’t learn by memorizing things; you learn by examining them, thinking about them, and evaluating. Theory is great, but implementation is far far better and way more important.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back at some point.
As long as I live, I will never forgot my Shakespeare professor, talking about the many versions of Hamlet Shakespeare wrote, and how in earlier drafts Queen Gertrude was complicit in the murder of her husband and how that changed. The professor insisted that Shakespeare did this deliberately; which made Hamlet’s dilemma even worse–could he trust his mother? I raised my hand, and pointed out that at the time Hamlet was put on, James I was king of England, and his mother was believed to have been a party to his father’s murder, and married his murderer and the parallel was too close for comfort. He dismissed this with a condescending wave of his hand and said, “Shakespeare was an artist and wouldn’t worry about such mundane things” to which I replied, “several months in the Tower of London and running the risk of being hung for insulting the King isn’t a mundane thing.” That was the last day I went to class, only showing up for tests, and my paper was “Murderous Mothers: The Parallels Between Queen Gertrude and Mary Queen of Scots”, for which I did a lot of historical research. The paper got an A, and I also got one in the class, and I never really trusted professors again after that. ↩︎
And today is yet another remote day. It would be anyway, but the office is only open for the access program and the pharmacy, and I am not needed for either so I will work remotely again today. However, after I am finished with work-at-home duties today, I am going to venture out and see what is open and what is not–or how bad the roads are. I know people are out there driving, but they are also New Orleans drivers, and I don’t know if I want to be on slippery, icy roads with people who can’t drive in rain. I am getting a little tired of being inside–I’ve literally not been outside of the house other than to take out trash since last Saturday, and the morning of the blizzard to take some pictures of the street–and while this blizzard has been such a lovely distraction, such an unexpected joy, and period of rest that we kind of needed. It was Christmas then the New Year’s attack happened and it was the Sugar Bowl and Twelfth Night and Super Bowl preparation–and we got a chance to stop, slow down and rest and find some joy. Even I–who generally hates the cold and snow and will avoid it at all costs–got caught up in the wonder of it all. It was wild and wacky and fun and so insane–and so perfect to have happen when I am writing about the insane world Scotty lives in, too. (Yes, I also worked on the book last night, and it went well, even if I am a little rusty. More on that later.) It was also lovely being all snug and comfy and cozy and warm inside, while it was cold and snowing outside. The novelty of being snowed in at home in New Orleans for three days is so surreal and nonsensical to me, that it still hasn’t completely sunk in as a quite real thing that happened. I definitely am going to write about it; people all over social media here are trying to come up with a name for the event and there are several good ones, but the one I am pinching for my book title will be The Big Freezy. I don’t know anything other than it will be funny, it will be a crime/caper novel, and it will be set during the blizzard of 2025. God only knows when I’ll get to it, but that’s a promise, Constant Reader.
That’s the lovely thing about New Orleans; we always have these communal experiences together. Everyone here will remember the blizzard and what they did, and everyone will have stories to swap for decades here. Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest, the Saints, potholes, the stoplights just flashing during rush hour, the Crescent City Connection traffic backed up for miles–these are all things we’ve experienced and can relate to when someone else brings it up; part of the threads that connect us all as a community. And New Orleans will always embrace the joy.
That’s the roadmap we have for the next four years, so as long as the news out of Washington remains grim and authoritarian, as what few government norms we have left are erased and decimated all in the service of a petulant toddler’s whims and grievances, we have to find our own joy to cling to. I found joy in my home city and an unexpected once-in-a-lifetime blizzard (although who knows? It could be an annual event from now on, too) and in getting my cover for my new book and in spending this unexpected down time just resting and relaxing and not letting things get to me. We all have to do this, and we also need to talk about our joy, because that is another way to fight evil and hate–with our joy. Maybe this reign of terror is easier on me than it is for straight people, because I always thought the majority of straight white people were horrible monsters, so most of this isn’t surprising to me. I can see why this was a surprise to so many people, because they never pay much attention to anything until it affects them directly, no matter how many marginalized people they know. I am almost sorry for them, but can’t be completely, since their obliviousness and tunnel vision helped us get to where we are now–and don’t get me started on white women, the enemy of all that is decent and kind. (Don’t @ me with your “not all white women” bullshit. The majority of you voted for him. Clean up your own house and don’t come for me about actual fucking facts. And I will remind you yet again that New Orleans always delivers over eighty percent of its vote for the Democrat presidential candidate. I can get on my fucking high horse about this shit, and I will rub your fucking face in it if you bring that denial shit here. You didn’t vote for him, this doesn’t apply to you, snowflake.)
See how easy it is for a mood to turn foul when you go down the white supremacy road? It doesn’t take me long, ever.
But yes, joy. Find joy, everyone, in small things and try to see the wonder and beauty in our lives because it is there, and we can’t let anxiety over the world burning to the ground around us drive joy out and replace it with misery. I’m going to try to mention at least one thing every day on here that brings me joy, no matter how small or insignificant it might seem. I’m not an optimistic person so I doubt very seriously that I’ll either remember every day or will even be able to think of something, but this morning, as the sun shines and all the snow is melting outside, I feel contented and happy and at peace. It’s a good feeling, too, and something I encourage all of us to work towards as we head into this brave new world.
I have to admit I’ve been watching a lot of World War II documentaries during this snow break, and while I’ve mostly watched them about the Pacific War the last few years, this past week I’ve focused my documentary viewing on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. (Can’t imagine why…) It’s kind of eye-opening, and the way the Allies treated the Germans–forcing them to clean up the concentration camps, having to see what they ignored and pretended to ignore in all of its horror (to be fair, I’m sure they didn’t know the extent of what was happening because it’s almost impossible to even conceive of, let alone believe, that any modern Christian European nation would efficiently exterminate twelve million people, but who wants to be fair to Nazis?), and as a nation they learned. We learned nothing from our own civil war and the white supremacy baked into our system; and we missed the opportunity to stomp out racism and white supremacy after that war ended…and never corrected the revisionist history promoted by the Klan and their Klan-wives. That’s kind of why we are where we are now. If we’d simply held firm and never allowed Southerners to memorialize their treason with statues and monuments to serve as reminders of their treasons…but they were venerated instead of pissed on, which is less than such monuments deserve. Fuck the Lost Cause; it deserved to be nothing more than dust in the archives.
And yes, I worked on the book last night after I finished my work at home duties, and overall, it went pretty well despite the rust and creaky muscles. I am feeling so much better about writing, being able to write, and getting everything done that I need to get done to get caught up and back on schedule for this weekend. We may go to Costco later on–if they’re open–but I am going to wait to go make groceries and check the mail until tomorrow, when I can be relatively certain most places will be open. It’s amazing how much of the snow has disappeared over night; my stairs and the walk are clear now. I think once I finish this I may walk out and check my car and the street.
And on that note, Constant Reader, I am heading into the spice mines to get things done. Have a great Friday, and remember to take a moment and experience joy–no matter how small of a delight it may be!
Wednesday morning and we’re still having snow days at work. Yesterday was absolutely unreal. I got up late (thanks, Sparky) and came downstairs to see it was actually snowing outside, and there was already snow accumulated on the ground! It also continued to snow most of the day–I kept looking out my workspace window to see how much more had accumulated since I last looked, and it was always, always more. It’s very weird to see crepe myrtles frosted with snow, you know? I appreciated the two extra days off with pay, not going to lie, but what a freaky fucking week already, right? A BLIZZARD IN NEW ORLEANS. So glad climate change is a myth–drill baby drill! We actually got almost ten inches of snow, which either ties the old record set in the 1890’s or breaks it; depends on your news source, actually. There’s still snow on the ground this morning, and it’s only twenty degrees outside. We’re now in a “black ice” situation with the roads, and the city contracted some snow plows from Indiana to clear the roads and put down salt (reminder to locals not used to snow and salted roads–wash your car as soon as you can to get the salt off. Maybe that’s not a thing anymore, but it wasn’t good for it when I was growing up in snowy weather. The city may even stay closed down tomorrow; how bizarre. I doubt very seriously that I am going to get another day off with pay, but we shall have to see this afternoon when they have their management phone call.
Another reason the blizzard was so delightful was because it basically turned everyone in the city into kids again; so many people were out having fun in the snow–something they may not be able to do again in their lifetimes here–and it was kind of contagious. Everyone, it seemed, from the newscasters broadcasting 24/7 down to the rank-and-file New Orleanians, was struck by this sense of awe and delight that was kind of contagious and very, oddly enough, healing. It was just three weeks ago that Bourbon Street was attacked, but yesterday went a long way towards reviving the joie de vivre that is so special and engrained here into our very beings. It was kind of a reset, in a way. It was very distracting, too–I kept looking outside to see how much more had accumulated; I kept checking the news to see more videos of people enjoying themselves in the snow–I liked the makeshift sleds people were using on the levees, and the cross-country skiers, and the people who were being pulled by cars on makeshift sleds along the streets. It stayed toasty warm inside all day, too, which was lovely. I did manage to get some things done yesterday; not much as I was distracted and you know me and shiny objects, but still got some things done. I’m hoping to get more things done today, and maybe a return to normalcy either tomorrow or Friday. I really do need to make a to-do list this morning so I can make sure I am getting everything done that I need to get done. How much do I love how Louisiana reacted to a blizzard? It definitely reminded me of why I love living in New Orleans so much. It still kind of trips me out to look out and see snow on the ground still–but it’s nice and warm here in the apartment.
I’ve still not picked out my next read, but I am leaning towards She Who Was No More, a classic French suspense thriller, which was also the basis for the film Les Diaboliques, which is one of my favorite films of all time (I originally saw the made-for-television remake, Reflections of Murder, with Joan Hackett, Tuesday Weld and a delicious young Sam Waterston). The author team who wrote it also wrote Vertigo, which was the basis for the classic Hitchcock film, and another book I’d like to read at some point. I did spend some time yesterday writing–not nearly enough time, of course–but we are watching a show called White Lies, starring Natalie Dormer, whom I’ve loved ever since she played Anne Boleyn in The Tudors, and it’s interesting. It’s set in South Africa and so it also deals a bit with racial discrimination and bigotry (how can anything set in South Africa not touch on it?), but it’s very well done and very well-written and I like that the main character is actually prickly and not a nice woman, which is always more fun to watch anyway. She Who Was No More is also rather short, making it a quick read as well. (I did read the first page of Amina Akhtar’s Almost Surely Dead, and it pulled me right in, so that will most likely be the next one up.)
I also got the cover art for my new Scotty and I really do like it. I should probably do a cover reveal entry here, and on Substack; this is the year, after all, that I decided to put more effort into my career. The book never seems real to me until I see the cover art, which is always a moment of oh wow I really like that turning into fuck, I need to write it now very quickly. Sometimes, though, that is just the kick in the seat of the pants you need to get serious and work super-hard to get it done. I also have two short stories to write by the end of the month and I also have to write the introduction to the SAS anthology, since I was the contest judge. That was an interesting experience; I’m not used to reading short stories to judge them, I’m generally reading them editorially (unless they are already in print) which was a problem, because I generally make mental notes about what to fix story-wise the first time I read them and then the second time I read more thoroughly, for character, setting, and language. So, it took some getting used to, believe me. And they were all really good stories; so I eventually had to go with the ones I liked the best to pick the top three, and even then, any one of the stories could have been the winner or a runner-up; what a plethora of riches I had to choose from.
And on that note, I should probably finish this and get on with my second snow-day. I am really getting spoiled by this unexpected vacation, and it’s really going to suck to have to go back to work again. So have a lovely mid-week Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later–you never know.
I came to Disney later in life. You also have to remember that I grew up in a different world than the one everyone who grew up in the 1970’s or later did; we couldn’t rent movies, there were only three television networks plus PBS and whatever local independents there might be, and so the only chance to actually see classics of Disney’s past was if they were re-released, and that didn’t happen very often. My parents, despite their youth, weren’t going to spend the money to take us to see something they didn’t care about seeing, either; money was tight, and Mom used to take us to see movies when we were little in the summer to get out of the heat. I do vaguely remember seeing The Happiest Millionaire on the big screen–my only real memory of it was he owned an alligator–but for the most part, we never really saw many Disney movies, and especially not animated ones.
Yes, when I was a child I watched Disney’s Wonderful World of Color every Sunday night after Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom for years. But my childhood was also not a great time for Disney, either in animation or live action. Sure, some films were gems, but not in the same vein as the big classics, like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Peter Pan and Cinderella. Disney was more focused on live animation movies (this was the period of The Love Bug movies and Kurt Russell’s college student movies (and beautiful Jan-Michael Vincent in The World’s Greatest Athlete.) at this time.
It was the Disney renaissance of my late twenties/early thirties, timed with my self-discovery journey about who I was and wanted to be and figuring out everything, really, that turned me into a Disney Queen. It was hard not to get up caught up in Disney’s beautiful visuals and songs about misunderstood outsiders who eventually find where they belong, from The Little Mermaid to Beauty and the Beast to so many others. All the films essentially had the same basic story beats: someone who doesn’t feel like they belong goes on an adventure, where they find themselves and what they were meant to be, and wind up with a great final reward of love and acceptance. How does that not resonate with gay men in the time of HIV/AIDS? The fact that songwriter Howard Ashman was a gay man dying of AIDS while working on The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast1 only made the films resonate with gay men all the more–and I went whole hog on the Disney Queen roleplay. (My favorite character of all Disney animation remains Malificent, of course.)
But I also always had a very soft spot for Hercules, even though it wasn’t one of the more popular animated Disney films. I’m always a little curious when Disney announces it’s making an animated film out of something that hardly seems kid-friendly; like The Little Mermaid, which is a horrible Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale. Likewise, when I heard they were making Hercules I arched an eyebrow. I loved Greek mythology and ancient Greece when I was a kid (my three favorite ancient civilizations were Greek, Roman, and of course Egyptian), and I was always interested in Hercules–although as a child I knew the correct Greek name was Heracles–because I kind of saw him as an ancient Greek Superman; the heavily muscled physique he was always depicted as having was just a bonus for little gay Greg, and I always wanted to write about him; discovering that in the original myths he had both male and female loves once I became an adult was just more fire to the flame. The Disney film, of course, altered a lot of the not-so-kid-friendly aspects of the myth, obviously; they made Hera his mother rather than his principle enemy, they cut the Muses down from nine to five, and eliminated his cruelty, his bouts of madness, and his insane all over the map sexuality to make him another Disney prince, who grows up an outsider and has to prove himself and that he not only belongs but is a hero.
The Muses were the narrators of the movie, and they were a delight. Their songs were all done in the style of old-time girl groups, and I thought they were a terrific narrative device. I loved the soundtrack, too.
Imagine my delight when I found out local New Orleans author Farrah Rochon, who is an highly acclaimed romance writer, was writing the backstory for the Muses in a young adult novel called Bemused.
And Reader, it was utterly charming.
I loved it.
Mnemosyne stood on the edge of the craggy cliff, listening to the whistle of the brisk windblowing through the barren tree branches below. The blanket of thick gray storm clouds that had shrouded the valley for the past few days had finally lifted. She took in a lungful of the clean mountain air. It was invigorating. And comforting.
And she was far enough away from the oppressive demands of Mount Olympus that she could finally feel a sense of calm. She had not experienced true peace in so long that even she, the Goddess of Memory, could barely recall what it was like.
Her fear had lessened with every moment that passed after she’d fled from Mount Olympus, the place where she’d spent so many onerous years. Now, she had a new destiny to fulfill. Had the time finally come?
A loud crack, followed by a harsh, high-pitched squawk, sent Mnenosyne scrambling for cover. She looked up just intime to see a bird swooping overhead, its wings extending out several feet on each side.
Mnenosyne, you see, was a Titan who didn’t fight Zeus and his siblings in their war to take over the heavens. She stayed on Olympus, and eventually developed relationships with several of the other goddesses in the pantheon, namely Athena and Artemis. But (this is the Disney universe, not the ancient Greek one) Hades spends a lot of time undermining her faith in capricious and fickle King of the Gods, Zeus, whom he resents for giving him the underworld to rule over and wants to overthrow (straight up from the film) him. He wants Mnenosyne on his side due to her control over memories; she can convince all the gods that Hades has always been the King of the Gods and Zeus the lord of the underworld, and so she is key to his plans. But she flees Olympus, making all of them forget she ever existed–but Hades kept a journal so she couldn’t do that to him as there was a written record. Hades is the big bad in this book, just as he was in the movie (which was probably the last time I’ve enjoyed James Woods in anything), and she creates her daughters, but keeps their gifts hidden as she keeps moving them around to avoid scrutiny and coming to the attention of the gods. But Hades finds her and kidnaps her, and her daughters now must use their powers to find her and save her from the clutches of Hades, so it’s also a very charming coming of age story as well as an interesting adventure.
This is an excellent read, and belongs on your shelves next to your Rick Riordan novels.
Miss me with the “Stockholm syndrome” takes on Beauty and the Beast, thank you very much; the entire point of the film is that someone monstrous becomes capable of love and caring for someone besides himself, which finally breaks the curse on him. It’s actually a beautiful story, it makes me cry every time I watch it at least three times (when he loves her enough to let her go; when he dies; and when he transforms back), and at some point I am going to write about this masterpiece of a movie. ↩︎
I woke up to snow on the ground and it’s still snowing! I’m not used to seeing stuff floating around outside my windows–I’m so used to rain I don’t even notice it when I’m sitting here at my desk, so that’s weird. Our office closed for the day–and I do think the entire city has completely shut down; even our gym closed–and they’re almost like Waffle House. #madness. It’s very weird, but it’s not cold inside the house (it’s chillier here in the kitchen, of course) and it’s kind of snuggly and toasty warm. We’ve not had cold weather like this since we got the new HVAC after the Great Mardi Gras Freeze of 2021, so I my concerns about the cold were primarily about it being very cold inside, and clearly, it was nothing to be terribly concerned with for long. I’m even comfortable here by the windows, and am not shivering. It’ll be lovely reading in my chair later; which reminds me, I’m trying to pick out my next read; I’m torn between an old French classic of suspense and something more current and diverse. I have all kinds of things to get done today, and I’m definitely going to spend some time in my easy chair with whatever I choose to read next. I may spend some time with my non-fiction read, too, so I can get further into it. (White Too Long, about how Christianity has helped hold up white supremacy in this country.)
I chose to make yesterday a nice day by not giving the authoritarian takeover of the country any oxygen or space in my brain. I see the older Democrats are failing the country (Marco Rubio was confirmed 99-0? Really?) and rolling over like the complicit lapdogs they are, screaming about norms and respect for institutions–which is what you do when you can’t lead. We are watching the history of January 6th being rewritten, right before our eyes. This is very similar to the rewriting of history done by Southerners (Southernwomen, I might add; white women have always been garbage, for the record) after the Civil War as they romanticized the days of chattel slavery and created the Lost Cause Mythology that so many Southerners cling to so desperately (it’s our heritage! Yeah, well, I don’t see a vast swathe of Germans arguing their “heritage” has been erased, have you? There are some, of course–there will always be garbage people). But show the entire heritage, then. Show how brutal and inhumane it was; and I really don’t understand why people are proud of heritage that includes human trafficking, but hey–y’all do you, okay? Don’t explain your position to me because you’ll just make me think even worse of you.
And believe me, I can always think worse of people. Always. And really–can you ever go wrong expecting their worst from people? They rarely disappoint.
I did see a lot of performative ally-ship on social media, too–the same straight white guys who were just joking about “gay marriage” the other day are suddenly queer allies again, of course. Can’t miss a chance at one of their “I’m one of the good guys” performances, can we? It’s really kind of sad in a way, that they don’t even get how awful they are when they go into default mode. But can’t miss a chance at getting likes and clicks for the performance…when they’re going to go back to making homophobic jokes and slurs, and isn’t it funny when two straight white men make gay marriage jokes, because what could possibly be funnier than two straight white men acting like caricatures of gay men? Ah, ha ha ha ha, no worries, because the joke is that of course these two absolute paragons of masculinity are acting what they think gay men are like in their heads. What’s even funnier is the two of you wouldn’t even get a second look in a gay bar from anyone apart from the visually impaired. Right now, I’m better built than either of you at sixty-three, and I wouldn’t take my shirt off in a gay bar. Trust me, you wouldn’t even be a 5 at the gay bar. What you’re actually telling me is you’re both incredibly insecure in your masculinity to the point that you have to build it up by punching down on gay men….but you’re actually punching up, as all indecent bigots do. Sorry your dicks are too small to satisfy a woman, and your ass is too dirty for gay men.
And people wonder why I don’t trust straight people. There were plenty of other allies clicking the laughing emojis too–because is there anything funnier than a gay couple? I may leave town for Bouchercon, seriously. So tired of the same old song, you know? And no matter how much I call it out, subtweeting doesn’t really seem to do the trick anymore because they are so convinced they are the good guys that they don’t need to check or examine their own behavior, because “good guys”are so convinced they’ve done all the work they need to, and they clearly haven’t, and running homophobic “jokes”? Sorry, you’re not one of the good guys, and save your apologies for someone who gives a shit, or is gullible and stupid enough (like I used to be) to actually believe you. If and when it came to it, what exactly would you do if they started rounding up queers? Make a few posts to show how amazing you are? That’s the kind of allyship that ended up with twelve million people being exterminated in camps in eastern Europe. I know exactly what you’d be doing if you lived in Germany in the 1930’s, or in the American South in the 1850s.
The snow is really coming down now! So, it’s probably time for me to head into the spice mines. I need to write my review of Bemused, as well as my review of the book Ode to Billy Joe. It’s off to the spice mines with me now on this weirdly snowy January day in New Orleans.
Thursday, last day in the office blog and while I am looking forward to the three-day weekend, I am dreading Monday–for obvious reasons–and will instead try to get shit done while taking the occasional moment to study Civil Rights some more, maybe even read my current nonfiction tome, White Too Long, about how Christianity and white supremacy have been intertwined for so long. But the week thus far has been a good one, and productive; almost like returning to the gym kicked something else into gear physically. I’ve not been physically tired (stiff, yes) or sore much since going back, and I’ve been feeling more energetic and empowered, too. I’m sleeping better, too–rarely waking up during the night or opening my eyes before Sparky gets into the bed with me right around when it’s time for me to get up. I don’t know if its the endorphins awakening everything up again, but I am more than happy to take it; I’ve certainly missed the joy of endorphin highs. I also got some amazing work done on the book last night, and that also felt good. I am doing the things that give me pleasure again, and turns out that makes me happier and more fulfilled and I enjoy my life more than just endure it.
Go fucking figure. No notes, highly recommend.
I really can be remarkably ignorant sometimes.
But the book is, as I said, coming along swimmingly. I’m starting to get into a rhythm, and I’m starting to hear Scotty’s voice again. I need to buckle down and focus harder on getting the book done–not going to be easy with Carnival on the horizon–but I’ve handled these kinds of situations before (a deadline right after Carnival) and I think as my writing muscles stretch and flex and rebuild and wake up again, hopefully I’ll be able to get back into my high productivity gear again. I know I want to start reading Bemused, maybe even as early as tonight, and spend some time with it this weekend as well.
I am also petty enough to enjoy seeing that Dollar General Anita Bryant, aka Carrie Underwood, is still getting dragged for the piece of excrement that she is. Really funny how some (straight white) people think we need to unify behind white supremacy is a serious tell, y’all. I never forgive bullies and I will never forgive Anita Bryant or her modern day iteration, either. I will never forgive people who think I should “rise above” being a target of hatred, bigotry, and prejudice and join hands with my oppressors. You want to be a doormat for the patriarchy, that’s fine–just know I will never forget or forgive, and I will point and laugh and mock for the rest of my life.
Choices.
It rained all day and all night, and it doesn’t feel that cold this morning–maybe I’m getting used to weather in the forties? AIEEEE! But we have nasty weather (as does everyone else) coming next week. It’ll be a little colder–in the thirties, but the wind chill factor will make it feel like single digits… which could bring us…gulp…snow. SNOWPOCALYPSE!!! I really do have to write about a murder on the day of a snowstorm in New Orleans. Obviously, the city freaks out and shuts down almost completely. I imagine I will have to go into work regardless–we rarely close–but a snow day could be fun, too. It’s going to be horribly cold everywhere on Tuesday, as hell is apparently freezing over. Not very subtle there, Mother Nature, but oh so apropos. Looks like the Senate Republicans are going to knuckle under and do what their Fuhrer demands to approve his terrible cabinet picks–never ever bet on Republicans having a spine or a love for country over party–so, yeah. The future’s so bleak I imagine a terminator is going to be arriving from the future at any moment.
Oddly enough, despite that horrible long dark tunnel the country is entering on Monday, I’m also getting excited about writing my next book, which has me champing to get this one written. I feel confident again, and it’s nice to think hey this is good rather than all of this is garbage why do you even bother? I love having creative thoughts and ideas running through my head all the time again. Researching pop culture and the news from the early 1970s has been fun and interesting, and has brought back a lot of memories. It’s amazing what you’ve forgotten about completely but with a reminder, will have a rush of other memories associated with that one. There were so many magazines in the 1970s, about everything. One of my teens is a car nut rebuilding the engine in a junked car since he can’t afford to buy a new or used one, and he basically wants to work on cars when he grows up, despite his parents’ wanting him to go to college, and oh my God how many car/hot rod magazines existed? How many magazines about the music industry? There were so many magazines you could actually have a comfortable freelance writing career, and when Playboy used to pay $5000 for a short story. Five thousand dollars for a short story. I’d weep with joy to get that kind of payday for a short story.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, and I may be back later. One never can be sure.
Sorry, bud, if you’re serving me my morning coffee you need skimpier shorts.
Here we are on a cold Sunday morning and I hope everyone is doing as well as they can this morning. I went to bed early and slept well–I really do think adding another to the pile of blankets, and its additional weight, is making a difference. Today I have to do some reading and some writing, go to the gym and make groceries. I feel rested and awake this morning, so as I slurp down my coffee and wake up while Sparky wants my lap in the easy chair I have to admit I feel pretty good this morning. Maybe I shouldn’t let myself sleep so late on Saturdays? I don’t know, but the coffee is hitting the spot and I do feel more rested than I did yesterday, so your guess is as good as mine. It’s kind of gray outside this morning, and it’s forty degrees–yikes–but it’ll get warmer later once the sun is higher in the sky.
We watched LSU Gymnastics compete against three of the best teams in the country yesterday, and with half of their usual competitors out with an injury, they only came in second by three tenths of a point; and Haleigh Bryant can make that difference up all by herself, not to mention the other two powerhouses who sat this meet out–which bodes well for the rest of the season. It’s so cool knowing they are the defending national champions! We also watched some of the Australian Open last night, and I went to bed early. I also managed to get some chores done around here, and overall, it was a pretty good day. I don’t think I even went outside yesterday, to be honest–which is always a good day for me.
I spent some time yesterday morning with Ode to Billy Joe, and while Raucher is a very good writer, he doesn’t really know how to write for teenagers, I think. Just because the story is set in the early 1950s and people were more innocent (?) back then in theory, it’s almost like reading something from a past civilization, and in some ways it kind of is. Raucher tries very hard not to condescend to rural Southerners, but there is a touch of that “zoo animal” thing to the story, if that makes any sense? It doesn’t quite seem real, and Bobbie Lee, the female lead, seems so child-like it’s hard to believe she’s supposed to be fourteen, and “receiving callers”–did Southern girls still say that in the 1950’s? It’s like something from The Glass Menagerie, and I don’t know if that archaic social phrase was in use, if at all. But there’s definitely more depth to the book than there was to the movie, and I think I’m going to end up enjoying the book more than I did the movie–despite the beautiful presence of Robby Benson and his amazing blue eyes and surprisingly deep voice.
Thinking of Ode to Billy Joe being a historical now made me realize that my own 70s book is kind of an artifact of another time, too. Researching and remembering things from that time of my life is always a bit of a surprise; things that had been locked away in a corner of my brain coming back to the front of the memory banks. Television shows and commercials, the looming Bicentennial (which was, at the time, shockingly commercialized; although the Tricentennial–which I won’t make it to, but hopefully the country will–will be even worse), the gas shortages and economic fears, the ever-present threat of nuclear war and annihilation, the never-ending conflicts in the Middle East, and the massive clean-up of the country’s air, water and litter. Top Forty radio was a weird mishmash of all kinds of music, from the bubblegum of the Osmonds to the Rolling Stones, Queen, and the Who to horrible novelty songs that were incredibly popular and were overplayed to death to the point I never want to hear any of them ever again, and everyone watched American Bandstand on Saturdays to hear music and see the latest dance moves. I am really looking forward to writing it. I also have two short stories to complete sooner rather than later, and of course as always I have too much to do in too little time–but I can make it work.
I’ve also, since the election, been thinking about how to resist the new regime and the inherent hatreds, cruelties, and horrors that are coming with them. Our only hope as a country depends on the Republican-controlled Senate (well, Republicans plus the bootlicking traitor John Fetterman) actually standing up for the Constitution, and looking for a spine on the Right is as fruitless as a snipe hunt. I am not getting involved with the Democratic Party, because it feels like I’ve been throwing my time, money and energy on them while they just roll over and play dead since the 1990s; and nowadays seems to be no different. Here’s the thing about our system; the only difference between the two parties since World War II has primarily been on domestic and interior policy; the foreign policy has always been the same, and a lot of bad things have been done by our government in the name of “national security” and our endless thirst for oil. This changed a bit under the MAGA monarchy the last time around–turning our backs on traditional allies while cozying up to Russia, North Korea, and China (Ivanka needs her trademarks!). I also love how the MAGAts are so quick to whine and complain against the forever wars they fully supported, and does anyone else remember their toxic patriotism on the eves of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq? How questioning the invasion decisions was basically treason and not supporting the military and pissing on the graves of the 9/11 dead? Because I sure the fuck do, and I also remember how the Right created cancel culture for the Dixie Chicks, as country music began to swing from being about the working class and resisting the rich? It’s also amusing to me that they complain about “forever wars” without remembering that the same people they are supporting today are the exact same people who lied to them and whipped them up into a disgusting “patriotic” frenzy?
I spent some time this weekend thinking about writing as activism, and that it used to be just that; my very existence and my career are made political by evangelicals and others of their ilk, and I had no say in that at all. Would I prefer to be left alone to live my life and make my own decisions without government interference? Absolutely. Is that ever going to happen? Not as long as trash and liars and false prophets continue to abuse the faith and the faithful for money, power, and control. How can anyone actually be a Christian and believe that the Prosperity Gospel of wolves in sheep’s clothing like Joel Osteen and other con artists of his ilk? Sinclair Lewis exposed all of this horror with Elmer Gantry, which is still as current as it was when first published in the early 20th century. Maybe Elmer Gantry, along with All the King’s Men, should be required reading in high school–but high schoolers won’t care anymore now than they did when I was one. (Also, back to the 1970s–there wasn’t an expectation that everyone would go to college, either. Only five kids from my graduating class went to college, I think, I could be off by one or two, out of forty-eight.) I’ve not thought of my writing as a way to make political statements–or at least I haven’t in a long time, at any rate, but someone pointed out to me several years ago (or longer, who knows anymore?) that my work was a lot more important than I’ve ever thought or believed; I did document what gay life was like in New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina changed everything. I also documented life in New Orleans in general, before , during and after a hurricane. I’ve written about gay con artists and corrupt hateful politicians and the far right and evangelicals and race and homophobia and misogyny. I often explore something that I find interesting in my books so I can learn more about the topic I am writing about as well as process my own complicated feelings about sensitive subjects. I even wrote a throuple into the Scotty series long before that ever became a subject for conversation in the community. It’s weird to think that my first two novels were released before Lawrence overturned sodomy laws nationally. My sex-life was against the law until I was forty-two. Forty fucking two.
I was filling out the pre-production form for Hurricane Season Hustle Friday, and I went to Amazon to look at the page for Mississippi River Mischief to see if information I needed was there–it wasn’t–but I also noticed I have forty-seven reviews and an average ranking of four and a half stars, which was kind of a surprise, albeit a pleasant one. That meant that overall there had to be more five star reviews than any other kind, else the average wouldn’t be over four, you know? This was a very pleasant surprise, in all honesty; I never look at Amazon pages for my books and especially never at the reviews; likewise, I will never go wading in the fetid swamp that is Goodreads. Who needs that aggravation? But as I said, it was a pleasant surprise, one that almost tempted me to look at the others, but I resisted the urge. I am more emotionally stable now than I’ve ever been in my life before, but why borrow trouble? And sure, it could be another ego boost but it could also be a blow.
And the last thing I need right now is something to rock my already shaky foundations.
California continues to burn, and people continue to expose how dark and twisted their souls and psyches are. It’s beginning to sound like most of these fires were started as arson–which would definitely count as a terrorist attack on Los Angeles, in my opinion; if Luigi shooting that fucking piece of shit counts as terrorism, burning down billions of dollars of property and destroying people’s lives as well as killing some of them definitely is an act if terror. Please don’t be a dick about the fires on-line, people. I’ve lived through a different kind of “act of God” that basically destroyed my city and generational wealth with it. Angelenos are still in shock and are going to be for a long time. This is a serious trauma, and believe me when I say a lot of Angelenos are going to be medicated for years to come. I’m still not entirely sure I’ve gotten over Katrina, in all honesty. So, for God’s sake, show some empathy and compassion for their suffering. Playing the blame game or bringing politics into this is fucking bullshit, so can you not do that? There’s no place in this country that is safe from an unexpected natural disaster.
And trust me, when it happens to you–you will hate those people. I’ve never forgiven any of them, including Chicago Bears fans. I had hoped that disgusting child rapist Dennis Hastert would die in prison, but he remains proof that only the good die young. Henry Kissinger and Anita Bryant is more evidence of that as well.
So, think before you post or comment. I hate Florida and Texas and their politics, but I also worry about them and try to do what I can whenever a hurricane devastates them.
And if you’re feeling smug and judgy–I’m looking at you in particular, Louisiana MAGA racists, remember that when a hurricane comes crashing through your home town.
And on that note, I am going to my chair to read my book for a bit before I get to work. I worked on the book yesterday and it went very well; I am feeling good about writing again and think I am going to be able to hit my stride again sometime soon. Huzzah! Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll talk to you again later at some point.
Queer and Loathing in America 