Category: homophobia

American Life

Friday Eve! Or Thursday, in actuality. But we’ve made it this far, with just today and tomorrow to get through before sleeping in on the weekend! Huzzah! I slept decently last night–not deeply, not that wonderful “I’ve turned into a log” coma-type sleep, but it was good enough that I don’t feel tired this morning, and I actually was awake before the alarm. It’s ridiculous how much more awake I feel when I don’t get up to an alarm–and how much less resentful I feel.

I also woke up to an email that the Nancy Drew action figure I pledged to support through Kickstarter reached it’s funding goal. I got the one from the cover of The Secret of the Old Clock, where she is wearing a green outfit, is holding a screwdriver, and looks (according to That Bitch Ford) about forty years old. Given that Nancy will be a hundred this decade, forty’s not a bad look on her.

Yesterday was a pretty good day. I got home, worked for a few hours, and then repaired to the chair to rewatch this week’s Ted Lasso (which was marvelous) and then we finished off Shrinking, which is one of the funniest shows to come along in a long while. I talked about this the other day, and the quality and high level of writing and acting continue through the final episode, which was also one of the greatest (and most unexpected) literal cliff-hangers I’ve seen in a long while.

I have been watching, with growing alarm and disgust, the recent right-wing war on anything non-Christian (which is hysterical, because nothing they believe is Christianity: you shall know them by their acts) and especially everything not straight and not white. Who knew straight white people were so fucking fragile? (Everyone non-white and non-straight) They also have incredibly weak faith in their Lord and Savior; because anything that might challenge that belief has to be eradicated, made not available, and swept under the rug and hidden from view because it makes them uncomfortable. What I would like to say to all of these people is mind your own fucking business. The hypocrisy of beating the drums and warning people about how they’re aren’t haters “just worried about the children! Won’t someone think of the children?” (Yet they are also the same people who believe everyone should be armed to the teeth and that school shootings are A-Okay with them because you know, ‘slippery slope’ and all that. Of course, they use the First Amendment for toilet paper but hey, newsflash! The Founding Fathers considered everything in the first more important than the second, otherwise GUNS would have been the First Fucking Amendment, wouldn’t it? No, they deliberately made it the second because the rights and privileges granted in the first were more important.)

The other day, a friend in the Queer Crime Writers’ group I belong to posted a screenshot of the age restriction requirement on the home page of a small but highly regarded lesbian press, where you actually had to plug in your birthdate in order to gain access. This was done to reduce potential liability in such states as Texas and Florida that have been passing unconstitutional, flagrantly Fascistic laws–laws that are deeply unpopular, but merely designed to advance the presidential aspirations of their deeply unlikable governor, who has the charisma of Ted Cruz and the charm of Matt Gaetz; nothing turns out the bigots like a fear that other people might be as equal in the eyes of the law as they are. This was horrific–but small queer presses don’t have the money or resources to fight these draconian, restrictive laws; one complaint from some skeevy parent in Florida whose pastor is probably molesting their children but oh no queer books! is what they see as the real problem. The demonization of trans people–directly tied into their stupid notion that transwomen and drag queens are the same thing (repeat after me: not all transwomen do drag–is the exact same thing as the crusades against gays and lesbians (not that far back), and is the same song, different verse. And why not go back to the scare tactics that have always worked? The piece of shit “libs of TikTok” woman is nothing more than a more modern, less talented Anita Bryant (she was a bigoted bitch, but I will give her credit for her singing talent; she actually had a successful career as a singer and spokesperson for the Florida Orange Growers–Florida again; it’s always Florida–until her bigotry destroyed her career. I have no sympathy for her, so don’t even try it. She deserved worse than divorce, bankruptcy, and public scorn.); the insidiousness of straight white women leading homophobic movements (see Maggie Gallagher) is predicated on motherhood; they are just mothers worried for their children! Won’t someone think of the children? (Unless it’s school shootings and legislation that might make a difference–doing nothing clearly isn’t working–in which case, who fucking cares about the kids? GUNS! MAH FREEDUM!)

These are indeed scary times, in which the complacent Left has allowed the rise of Fascism on the right, and even now isn’t doing enough to fight back against it; when small presses that have been doing the heavy lifting for queer books when we are not in fashion at the big houses could be fined and/or punished by a state for the crime of selling books on their website. (The irony of this happening to Bywater Books–who later took it down–whose DNA goes back to Naiad Press which was based in fucking Florida, is something you couldn’t put into a book. (In times like these, I miss Barbara Grier. Barbara would have ripped off deSantis’ head and shit down his neck.) This brings up several legal questions–which should be left to the lawyers–but it seems to me these laws and restrictions are not only censorship but also violate interstate commerce laws as well as the full faith and credit article in the Constitution.

It’s so tiring to be constantly having to explain to people why you deserve to be treated like a human being.

It occurred to me last night before I went to bed that I need to use this little platform better than I have been. I am sure anyone who reads my blog probably is on the same page as me politically; I can’t imagine this being a safe space for a bigot. But I’ve not been talking much about politics here, not in a long time at any rate, because I’ve always been of the mindset that it would just be preaching to the choir. Anyone who knows anything about me, or has read my books, should know where I stand politically. That I oppose bigotry and prejudice of any kind. That I believe that all Americans should be equal in the eyes of the law; that it’s the government’s job to intervene when something in the public sphere reaches crisis stage–whether it’s recovery from a weather event, health care, or violence. In a capitalist system, the government has to step in when the system fails to correct it.

But now we have a Supreme Court that seems determined to roll back the clock to the “good ole days” when non-white non-straight non-cisgender people were invisible–and it was socially acceptable to mistreat them if they weren’t.

For the record, your freedom ends before it infringes on mine.

Age restrictions and requiring adult permission to check out books dealing with queer or racial issues in this country essentially renders all that work–regardless of its intended audience–as pornography.

Queer characters are automatically pornography, because that’s all the “christians” think about when they think about queer people–dicks in asses, tongues in vaginas–which is frankly kind of creepy and revolting. I don’t look at straight people and wonder, does she like to do reverse cowgirl? Does he like it when she pegs him? because it’s none of my fucking business. I’m sorry you people are so frightened by sexuality and the mere thought of sex–but maybe try not thinking about it for a minute or two? My sex life is none of your business just as yours is none of mine. There is nothing more invasive that government intervention into your sex life.

Talk about slippery slopes*! Straight people also do oral and anal. Straight people are also into kink, threeways, orgies, leather, BDSM, you name it. And if we the people allow the government to legislate our sex lives…don’t you think it’s entirely possible they’ll come for yours someday? Why not outlaw oral and anal sex (sodomy laws are still on the books in some states, including Louisiana…those laws are never enforced on straight people, quelle surprise). Why not virginity laws? Or a virginity tax you only have to pay once you’ve had sex? If this sounds insane or crazy to you, please bear in mind that this is precisely what Florida, Texas, and Tennessee, among umpteen others, are trying to do.

It was nice, though, actually feeling like a full-fledged American citizen there for a few years. I should have known it would be a fleeting feeling.

*Of course, the only slippery slope the right cares about has to do with the Second Amendment, or as I like to call it, the Eleventh Commandment.

Hanky Panky

I honestly believe that a lot of our problems in this country are a direct result of an attempt to enforce some national prudery standard that relentlessly tries to shame any and every one of us for the perfectly natural and normal human functions of our body. We are seeing this again in this modern age, as the Morality Police (who are all-too-frequently hiding some horrific skeletons in their own closets) try to get books banned, discussions about sex and sexuality and gender stifled and silenced, and entire segments of the population erased from public view and hidden away again because it makes them, well, uncomfortable.

Well, semi-automatic weapons, religion, and bigotry make me uncomfortable, but that doesn’t matter, apparently, as I am (to borrow a phrase from John Irving and The World According to Garp) a “sexual suspect.”

Ironically, I distinctly remember what television was like back when it was heavily censored and what was considered wholesome family entertainment was aired. It didn’t mean sex wasn’t talked about, it just meant that it had to be implication rather than outright said–which led to incredibly stupid phrases to stand in for sexual contact, or sexual intercourse, that were completely transparent and frankly, kind of stupid. That was the kind of television I grew up with, where everything was plastic and phony and created a false sense of what the country was really like (where, for example, are Mayberry’s Black people?), and some people watch those old shows and think, oh, what a better and simpler time we lived in then! We must get back to that world of innocence!

Which, of course, is complete and utter horseshit. Television of the 50s and 60s most certainly were not reflections of culture and society as a whole, no matter how much someone might want that to be the truth…it was not.

When I was a child, I hated the stupid, coy euphemisms screenwriters employed to mention sexual activity and escape the censors; “hanky-panky” is perhaps one of the worst. “Making love” is another one that puts my teeth on edge; “making whoopie” still another, and perhaps the worst offenderof all was ‘vo-dee-oh-doe’ from LaVerne & Shirley. Even when I was a kid that kind of “nudge-nudge wink-wink” kind of thing annoyed me; I can remember thinking, many times, “just say fuck, for Christ’s sake.” “Making love” is one that was really popular on soaps, and it’s always said tearfully; it also made me want to slap the speaker (and of course the movie Let’s Make Love really should be Let’s Fuck). The fact that we don’t have a common, easy to use word to substitute for fucking that delicate sensibilities won’t consider profane is part of the problem in this country, frankly. Oh, no! Sex is dirty, we can’t talk about that! We can’t come up with a non-offensive word for it because just thinking about sex upsets some people. God forbid we actually have a realistic, honest conversation about sex and sexuality. I hate to break it to you prudes, but sex is normal and healthy. The fact that our culture has tried so desperately to appease the prudes by turning sex and sexuality into something we’re just not supposed to talk about has put braces on our brains, and anchored fear and loathing to our sexuality; if our mightiest God in this country is Money, the second mightiest is SHAME. Having your body react to stimulation by getting aroused? SHAME ON YOU.

When I was growing up–and granted, things have gotten a little better since then–even masturbation was considered something shameful that no one would ever admit to; nothing like learning repression when you’re going through puberty. It was an insult to call someone a jack off; you mocked boys by talking about them jacking off…which was something I did pretty regularly, so even more SHAME. And when you take into consideration the fact that even as young and sheltered as I was, that I knew my sexuality–my physical and intellectual and emotional attraction to other men–was wrong and something else to be ashamed of; not only was I masturbating but I was thinking about men while I was doing it: DOUBLE WHAMMY.

It took me years to shake off that prudish conditioning, and it wasn’t until I stopped feeling shame about sex and my sexuality that I finally started to actually live my life, rather than having a life that just happened to me. Fear and shame had made me passive; afraid that being myself and living the kind of life I wanted to would cost me friends, family and employment; afraid that embracing having sex with other men (and exploring every element of what that meant) would lead to an infection that could kill me; afraid afraid afraid.

I often say that I refuse to live in fear, but that I am also sensible; I always am acutely aware of my surroundings and everyone around me–while that may have developed from being gay and knowing that made me a target, I think it’s prudent and smart to always be aware, regardless of who and what and where you are.

Given my prudish upbringing and conditioning, as well as the shame and fear I lived with for so long, it is kind of interesting that I started write erotica in my late thirties. Writing erotica for me was an education in many different ways. I learned a lot about myself while writing it, for one thing; for another, I taught myself how to write short stories by writing erotica (beginning, middle, end is never as apparent or obvious as in an erotic short story), and I was also able to work through a lot of my own issues with shame by writing erotica. The first erotica story I ever wrote, “The Wrestling Match,” was a liberating experience for me; I found myself blushing with embarrassment as I wrote it, which was an interesting (to me) phenomenon. Why was I so embarrassed to write about desire, lust, and sex?

Because years of conditioning to associate shame with desire and sexuality had taken firm root in my mind. It was an interesting experience–and the next time I wrote an erotic story, tit was an entirely different situation; there was no shame or embarrassment. Apparently, all it took was writing that first story to work through it…it was also interesting, because around that same time I was trying to get caught up with all the queer fiction and nonfiction I hadn’t known existed for such an extended period of time, and reading has always been how I learned about anything. I was reading Dorothy Allison’s essay collection Trash (which should be required reading, really), and Dorothy’s point that if we spoke honestly and openly about sex and sexuality (and other aspects of human life that for whatever reason we’ve been conditioned to think we can’t talk about) a lot of the stigma and shame most people feel would be eliminated. As long as your fantasies don’t involve hurting anyone or children–if everyone involved is able to give informed and full consent–there’s nothing to be ashamed of, really. But we’ve been conditioned in western civilization since Catholicism conquered the Roman Empire to consider anything of the body to be sinful and shameful; things of the mind and spirit are what we are supposed to focus on while denying the earthy sinfulness of our sexual desire. (This also goes for other bodily functions, like waste and gas) This is particularly true when it comes to kink. We’ve been conditioned in this country to think anything besides missionary position between a man and a woman is something so beyond that it must be shamed, and reacted to with revulsion. Why? As long as no one is being hurt and everyone is on board, I don’t care if you like being spanked, or lashed with cat o’nine tails; or if you like to wear leather and get a thrill from it. My own kinks primarily are focused around the domination/submission play of wrestling; I’ve written about that extensively enough to not feel the need to go into it again here (but check out my erotic pro wrestling novel, Going Down for the Count, available at any bookseller on-line!).

We don’t have honest conversations about sexuality and desire in this country. Writing an erotic short story was incredibly freeing for me; it broke the bonds of shame that indoctrination had built up in my brain. It may not be the case for everyone else, but it’s always interesting to me that people never question themselves when it comes to their own prudery, lusts and desires. (The way they depict it on the hilarious animated comedy series about puberty, Big Mouth, is particularly genius: the Shame Monster.) If you feel shame about your sexuality and your desires, shouldn’t you examine that? Where did it come from? Why do you feel this shame, and what is its root cause?

I do spend a lot of time gazing at my own navel and trying to figure out where all of my phobias and fears and so forth come from, so it’s always interesting to me when people don’t and seem to have no interest in self-examination. Maybe it’s just another form of my own narcissism and self-absorption; that could easily be the case. I sometimes wonder if the reason others don’t reflect on themselves and self-evaluate is because they are somehow more comfortable in their own skins than I am in mine. It’s certainly possible.

But the only way we can stop a lot of the bigotry and hatred in this country is to start being open and honest about sex, sexuality, and desire. To stop shaming people for being interested in sex, and exploring their fantasies and desires. Almost all of our prejudices are rooted in this fear of sex and sexuality; white supremacy is, in some ways, about protecting the “purity” of their blood and “womanhood” from the sexual predation of non-whites. (That was really what the trial in To Kill a Mockingbird was about; but interestingly enough Harper Lee, in illustrating Southern white bigotry through a rape trial, was also unintentionally sending a very strong message to her readers about class structures in the South; but that’s a subject for another time. White people really love that book….)

Banning books and discussion of sexuality and gender doesn’t make those things go away; instead, it just makes them even more enticing as forbidden, things that are dirty and we aren’t supposed to talk about.

Then again, if we are going to talk about these things, people also need to listen–and the ones who need it most? Never are the ones listening in the first place.

This Used To Be My Playground

Monday morning of Malice week. Ugh, all the little things one has to do to get ready for traveling. Make a list of what to pack, take inventory of the kitchen to make sure Paul has what he needs while I’m gone, and so on and so forth. Heavy heaving sigh. But my flight Thursday isn’t super early; eleven-ish, if I recall correctly, which means I don’t have to be at the airport until around nine, which isn’t bad. I’m going to take some books with me to read for pleasure at the airports and while in flight; I will be editing when I can in my room periodically trying to get this revision finished by the end of the month. The weekend wasn’t nearly as productive as it could have been–there was another wave of depression and grief to be gotten through this weekend, unfortunately–but I did make some progress, which I am taking as a win. I did also make a to-do list for the week; that should help in some ways.

We watched A Knock at the Cabin last night, which I enjoyed; a lot more than I usually enjoy an M. Night Shyamalan movie. I had also enjoyed the book on which it was based, The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay, who is one of our best horror writers today; I’ve enjoyed everything of his I’ve read thus far. The film follows the book very closely; it’s one of those claustrophobic horror stories where some city folk take a vacation in the country at a remote cabin–but remote and country are very much staples of horror; someone really should do a look at the trope of “city folk in the country” horror–and things of course go very south. The film is very well cast; Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge play Eric and Andrew, a gay couple who’ve adopted a young Asian girl they’ve named Wen and they make an adorable little family group. The location of the cabin is idyllic and tranquil and beautiful; the perfect spot for some city folk who want to get away from the every day and rest and relax. Wen collects grasshoppers in a jar because she wants to study them; the movie opens with her catching grasshoppers and then catching a glimpse of a very big man coming through the woods to talk to her. This is Leonard, played very well by Dave Bautista, who is the leader of a group of four people who have seen visions and have concluded that in order to stop the apocalyptic end of the world, they must come to this cabin and present the family with a horrible choice: they have to sacrifice one of their own in order to stop the end of the world. Are they crazy? They sound like it, as they try to reason with the family…but what if they aren’t? The movie’s ending is different than the book’s–there was no way they could film the book’s ending, really–but I do prefer the book’s ending than the film’s; it seemed like the inevitable outcome, and made the most sense. It’s a good movie, I do recommend it, but one thing I’ve always been curious about since reading the book and was only heightened by viewing the film: why a gay family? I gave Tremblay props when I read the book, because they were very real and didn’t seem forced or stereotypical at all; I thought it should stand as an excellent example of someone who is not gay writing gay characters. The politics of the representation–gays in peril–is one I am not going to give any time to; sure, the gay family was in danger almost from the minute the credits rolled, and it was nice having a gay couple to root for in a horror film. Horror by its very nature is disturbing and tragic; you cannot have gay representation in horror and then not expect the gay people to go through some things, you know? And having gay characters also adds another dimension to the home invasion situation–are they crazy, are they telling the truth, or did they target a gay family purposely? There’s an essay to be written about the book and the movie from a sociopolitical and sociocultural perspective, but I don’t know that I am the right person to write such a thing; I’m not an academic, after all, and have very little desire to ever be an academic.,.although that sometimes can explain my insecurities about thinking deep and heavy thoughts and wanting to write deep and heavy essays picking apart and deconstructing gay representation in modern fiction, with an emphasis on horror and crime.

I also read some academic treatises this weekend, one about being gay and the gay rights movement’s intersectionality and how it got away from that in the beginning only to circle back around to it in the present day, and the other about the television show Dark Shadows, which probably had more influence on me, my writing, and my preferences when it comes to reading, film, and television than anything else I’ve watched or read in my life. I know I used to watch classic black and white films with my grandmother (she was a big fan of the gay icons, ironically: Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck, and Katharine Hepburn; she also liked horror and noir, and she was a fan of Dark Shadows, as was our babysitter down the street, Mrs. Harris), so pretty much my course was set when I was a little boy–gay writer was my future. I should write more about Dark Shadows–I was actually thinking last night that I should write a memoir of being a writer; my influences and how they shaped my creativity and what I actually write–not that anyone would be interested in reading such a thing, of course; which is partly why I don’t write more personal essays. Just as I’ve never really been interested in writing a writing manual, or one of those Greg Herren teaches you how to write a novel things. I always feel like a fraud when I talk about writing; never does my Imposter Syndrome strike as hard as it does when I am talking about writing or teaching a workshop. I don’t know.

It’s back into the office with me today. It’s a light day for me; mostly busy work, like data entry, filing, resupplying testing rooms, that sort of thing. It’s always nice to ease back into the week with an easy day in the office. It’s also weird to know that I am leaving on Thursday morning; the trip doesn’t seem real to me yet even though I’ve already made plans to meet up with people while I am there. Looks like I’m going to have to take a Lyft or an Uber from the airport once there, which is fine. And then of course when I get home I have to make up for lost time with the manuscript. Heavy heaving sigh. It wasn’t a good weekend for working, really; I kept spiraling and had to finally, on both days, remind myself that my mental health was more important than a deadline and so focused on positivity and and worked when I was able to get things done. The house isn’t nearly in the kind of shape I would like for it to be in when I am leaving for a weekend (two in a row; the next weekend I am off to Alabama) but seriously–when is it ever? I just need to make sure everything is in order before I go away on Thursday morning. Heavy heaving sigh.

And my books that I’ll be taking to read with me are going to be That Summer Night on Frenchmen Street, Wined and Died in La,, Let Me Die in His Footsteps, and Monday’s Lie. I am not going to get through all of these, of course; I may even cut it down to two–like I won’t be buying books in the book room, please–and I will also be working on the revision while I am there, too. (I so wanted to be finished before I leave…)

And on that note, I am going to get cleaned up and head into the office. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.

Dear Jessie

Thursday and my last day in the office for the week, with no health fair to drop in for tomorrow morning. I can just sleep late and can relax with no worries about getting to the office. Our schedule is full today, for the first time since pre-pandemic, so it’s going to be a day where I probably won’t have time to breathe much.

Paul worked late last night writing a grant, so I did go ahead and watch this week’s Ted Lasso without him, and yes, I will definitely be happy to watch it again. I usually watch each episode twice anyway, and what a delight this episode was. I know there’s some grumbling out there about this season, and I will admit so far this season hasn’t been quite up to the high standard the first two seasons set–it is still quite excellent–but this week’s episode? Chef’s kiss, perfection, no notes. (If you haven’t already seen it, stop reading right now and skip to the next paragraph.) The sequence where Jamie teaches Roy to ride a bike, set to “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head”? (People who’ve never seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid might miss the reference, but it made me smile.) Absolute perfection. It never ceases to astonish me that Jamie Tartt has become one of my absolute favorite characters on the show; his journey from self-absorbed narcissist to a kind, caring and considerate person has been one of the best character arcs I’ve ever seen done on television. Then add in Trent and Colin’s scenes, where Trent comes out to him and tells him he already knows about Colin? That conversation was filmed in front of the Homomonument in Amsterdam that commemorates the queer people killed in the Holocaust or those who were later prosecuted and persecuted for the crime of being themselves, which made it all the more touching and moving. Colin’s whole thing about two separate lives, wanting to just be himself, being able to kiss his fella after a win like the other guys kiss their girls, and live his life and not be a spokesperson? Oh, darling Colin, that’s really what we all want, and it broke my heart just a little as I realized, once again, that no matter how far we’ve come, we still haven’t made it to home base. It was so heartfelt and real, I got tears in my eyes. And then Higgins and Will at the jazz club; Rebecca and her boat man; and of course the vast silliness of the team trying to decide what to do for their free night in Amsterdam, while Ted shrooms? Absolute perfection, from the very first scene to the last. It warmed my soul and when the closing credits rolled, I felt satisfied and happy. I am really going to miss this show when it comes to an end. Thank you to the writers, because that scene with Trent and Colin easily could have become maudlin and melodramatic; instead, it was honest and real and a little heartbreaking. The writers of the episode deserve an Emmy for that scene alone.

I did get some work done on the book last night. I was tired when I got home–I guess I should be getting used to that by now; getting up early means flagging energy later in the day, which does make sense–but I slogged through some of it, anyway. I feel pretty good and lively this morning, though; but we have a full schedule which means I will be exhausted by the end of the day. Paul’s grant gets turned in today, so he should be home this evening, so I’ll get to revisit this magical episode of Ted Lasso before we dive in and get caught up on both Yellowjackets and The Mandalorian. I also managed to put away the clean dishes from the dishwasher and then reloaded it; so that will need to be unloaded tonight and reloaded again; we’ve gone through a lot of dishes this week for some reason. Go figure. Tomorrow is a work-at-home day, which will be lovely. I keep hoping that someday I’ll get caught up on the housework, but it never seems to happen. I really need to focus on revising the manuscript this weekend, too–it’s horrifying how far behind on it I actually am. I really wanted to be lazy this weekend, but that’s clearly not going to be an option. I need to get up every morning, do some cleaning and organizing, and then open up the manuscript and dive in headfirst. It sometimes feels like I’ve been working on this book for-fucking-ever; and I long for the day when it is finished, once and for all. It’s also supposed to rain tomorrow, which should make for a very cozy at home day.

I guess I still feel a little off-balance, more than anything else. I don’t really feel like I’ve been able to find my center in a very long time, and as such, my life has felt off-kilter for about three or four years now. I remember joking when the pandemic first shut down the world in March 2020 that “LSU had a perfect football season and broke the world,” but in a very real sense, that’s kind of what happened–they weren’t connected, simply sequential–and even that Carnival in 2020 felt wrong somehow; people got killed at the parades by falling under floats; the Hard Rock Hotel construction site had collapsed, closing down several streets around and including Canal; and of course, racism and homophobia have been running rampant during these times. It’s been a very tiring period, frankly, and getting older during it hasn’t helped matters much. So many changes, so many adjustments, so much exhaustion. I do sometimes think I am getting too old for this life. Slings and arrows, slings and arrows, slings and arrows.

However, the irony that the United Kingdom and the United States, the two countries that led the world in the war against fascism in the 1940’s, are currently sliding headfirst into fascism needs to be noted regularly. As I say to Paul all the time when the latest insanity breaking news flashing across our phones and TV screens, “I’m glad I’m old and don’t have any children to worry about.”

Anyway, I am going to bring this to a close now. Not quite as fiery as yesterday’s post, of course–I was in quite the mood when I wrote yesterday’s, but it still stands as truth–but that isn’t going to happen every day anyway. I’m so tired of being outraged and aggravated, you know?

And I do sometimes wonder how different my life would be had I not been born into a homophobic society and culture.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines, Will check in with you again tomorrow, Constant Reader. Have a lovely Thursday!

True Blue

Easter Sunday, which I keep forgetting about. Last year the day job changed holidays; we used to get Good Friday off (New Orleans is very Catholic) but they changed it to Juneteenth, which is better. That was how I always knew when Easter was because it was a three day weekend. Now that it’s isn’t, it’s just another religious holiday I don’t give two shits about. Even when I was a child, I wondered, how does the anniversary of the crucifixion and resurrection fall on different dates every year? It’s just another example of the falsity of the bedrock of Christianity, and really was just the Catholic Church absorbing and rebranding pagan spring celebrations and fertility rites–which is where the Easter Bunny and easter eggs come from.

Granted, these Christian fertility celebrations aren’t nearly as weird or frightening as say the ones in Thomas Tryon’s classic Harvest Home (which I need to reread), but still.

Now that I’m thinking about it, has there ever been a horror book or film written/made focused on how creepy Easter can be?

I’m feeling lazy today–not really a surprise, really, is it? I feel lazy every day, and always feel laziest on days when I have to do things I’d rather not do. I have to run out and make groceries at some point–probably this morning, while most everyone is celebrating Easter mass and so forth–and I also have to get to work on ordering my taxes for my accountant, which I keep forgetting to do. I slept really well last night–feel very rested and relaxed this morning–and I managed to get some things done yesterday. I got my desk area cleaned up somewhat; filing and putting things away and so forth. My electronic files are still a horrifying mess, and I don’t think that will change anytime soon because what I really need to do is go through everything, file by file, eliminating duplicates and so forth. Maybe when I have enough time accrued I can take a week long staycation and just work on things around the house like that and the storage attic.

I started reading Margot Douaihy’s debut Scorched Grace, and while I am only a couple of chapters in, I am already in awe of everything about the book. The writing, the characterization, the setting, the way the sentences and paragraphs are rhythmically drawn, like the best poetry–and the voice itself! Oh my God, Sister Holiday’s voice is so refreshingly different, vital, and new. The tone is very hard-boiled; imagine Chandler or Cain writing about a lesbian nun in New Orleans. I cannot wait to spend some more time with it today–even if it does make me feel like I am a rank amateur; truly great writers have that kind of power over me. It’s hypnotic and compulsively readable. The fact that the book opens with arson and a possible murder is even more genius; few things are feared more in New Orleans than fire. This book is a fine addition to the annals of New Orleans crime fiction, which is always exciting when you find a new such author.

We also watched Jordan Peele’s Nope last night, and it was really quite excellent. It was more suspenseful than scary, although that can sometimes be much worse and more intense. Who knew Peele would go from sketch comedy to being one of our best and more creative filmmakers with a strong focus on horror? I’m sure a film critic and/or academic can talk about Nope in a much more intellectual style than me; I don’t look for symbolic meanings in images and so forth. But I think what he was trying to do with Nope was not only to show how dangerous it can be to live isolated from the rest of the world (the vast emptiness was beautifully shot and displayed; the most terrifying thing about the entire movie was that feeling–which reminded me so much of Kansas). I’d like to watch A Knock at the Cabin tonight, or The Pale Blue Eye, or perhaps even both; I guess it depends on how much work I can get done during the day today. I honestly don’t want to do any, but that really isn’t an option.

Yesterday was kind of like that, too–I really didn’t want to do much, so I wasn’t motivated enough to get as much done as I would have liked or had hoped. Part of it was being on social media yesterday morning as I tried to wake-up and get my brain jump-started; people really are horrible on social media, aren’t they? The misogyny, the homophobia, the racism, and the transphobia can be a bit hard to take sometimes (most times, let’s be honest); it fills me with rage, which then triggers adrenaline, and when that passes, I’m tired and in no mood anymore to be productive. Social media is the enemy of all that is good and productive. I have always wondered why and how people have so much time to spend on social media. What isn’t getting done while you’re being a bitch on-line to people you don’t know, will never know, and will probably never interact with again? Who wins in that situation anyway? I know people say there are bot-farms and troll farms, where people in eastern Europe (Romania?) are paid to troll on-line? I can’t imagine that being a great job, although I would imagine any number of people would leap at the chance to be get paid to be an asshole on line; there certainly are plenty of people who’ll do it on a volunteer basis, for sure.

I posted the other day that, in wake of their state’s anti-queer legislation and since the racist conduct of said state legislature was on full display this past week, I had made the personal decision not to go to Nashville Bouchercon in 2024. I didn’t ask anyone to join me in not going; I didn’t proselytize or ask anyone to write to Bouchercon and ask for it to be moved; or anything else: I simply said I had decided that I personally cannot support any event in the state of Tennessee, nor would I feel safe if I did attend. That was it. Period. I don’t think that’s terribly controversial, really. I’ve always believed that it’s up to everyone to make their own personal choices, and the reasons for those choices are none of my fucking business (see how easy it is, evangelicals, to mind your own fucking business?). I also don’t judge people for those choices because I don’t know–or want to know, or need to know–the reasons they made them. Everyone is on their own path, and my path often veers away from the paths of others; I don’t want or need or owe anyone an explanation for my choices and decisions. If things change in Tennessee in the meantime I also have the ability to change my mind and attend. But I am not asking anyone to straight-splain to me why I should go, or try to change my mind. It’s kind of insulting and condescending, actually, for anyone straight to try to talk a gay man into attending a conference (or anything, really) when they have already stated they’ve thought about it and decided not to go because they may not feel safe. I am a sixty-one year old adult gay man. I think I have enough life experience to make my own decisions, and I don’t need anyone to tell me my thought and decision-making processes–thoroughly grounded in my life experience–are wrong.

Fuck. All. The. Way. Off.

I was also thinking a lot about my writing future yesterday, so the whole day wasn’t a total waste of not-writing. I’ve had an idea for a New Orleans crime novel for quite some time, but always thought it had to be told from the point of view of, well, Venus Casanova, and I didn’t think I had the right to write from the point of view of a Black female police detective. Well, maybe not the right, but the experience and emotional intelligence to tell it properly. But yesterday that story popped into my head again, and I realized I could tell it from Blaine’s point of view, her partner, who would and could have his own doubts about Venus and her personal stakes in the case. I even took it further and thought maybe Venus could bring the case to Blaine after she’s retired; because of her personal relationship with the victim’s family, and then my mind started spinning round and round and following the paths branching out from this re-centering of the point of view, which definitely seems workable. And I’ve always liked my character of Blaine, wanting to delve more deeply into who he is and his own history and path.

And on that note, I am going to read some more Scorched Grace in my chair until it’s time to go make groceries this morning. Have a lovely Easter if you celebrate, and if you don’t, have a lovely Sunday.

Papa Don’t Preach

And now Saturday comes sliding into my life like a long-lost friend. Hello, Saturday! So glad to see you back and in such good spirits! Yay for Saturday!

Yesterday was an odd one. I did my work-at-home stuff, whilst doing picking up and random acts of cleaning and organizing whenever I needed to get up from the computer. We also went to Costco–it was crowded, but I am always amazed at how swift, polite, and efficient their employees are–got the mail and picked up a prescription. Today is the Crescent City Classic 10k, and I don’t know what streets are open or closed, so today is going to be my “don’t leave the house” day and I will make groceries tomorrow. There’s more of that to do around here today as well; but at least the laundry is caught up and it should be somewhat easier to organize, clean and file after the work I did yesterday. We finished watching Unstable on Netflix, the show starring Rob Lowe and his son John Owen Lowe, who I think created the show and may be the showrunner? It’s gotten some terrible reviews (I just looked because I couldn’t remember if it was Owen John or John Owen) but we liked it. It’s not anything serious–it’s just a workplace comedy with the added dynamic of father/son–but it has its funny moments and the cast is likable (I kept thinking, how does Rob Lowe still look so fucking amazing? And how is he still so likable?); it was a pleasant entertainment that didn’t aspire to be anything more than that.

Today I imagine Paul will be out all afternoon–trainer and then he likes to ride the bike for an hour or so after–so I will be home alone today, which is good. I want to start reading Scorched Grace–I don’t know why I have had so much trouble lately picking up a book and reading–and I also have to start the revision of Mississippi River Mischief this weekend, primarily by reading it again and seeing just how bad it is. (I suspect it’s pretty bad, actually) But it’s okay, as long as I remained focused I’ll be okay. I managed to get all of my day job work caught up yesterday (yay!), so my primary get caught up thing is this Scotty manuscript, which I think I can get finished by the end of the month if I’m lucky. I also have to work on my taxes at some point this weekend (ugh; that may be a job for tomorrow morning before I make groceries…yes, that actually makes the most sense) and ugh ugh ugh. (I also got caught up on Real Housewives Ultimate Girls’ Trip, which…the less said the better.)

Wow, my coffee is really tasting good this morning.

I slept really well last night (woke up at six yet again though) and feel marvelously rested and relaxed this morning. Scooter cuddled with me last night when I went to bed again, which was lovely (he wants attention even as I type this) and I am going to go sit in my easy chair when I finish this and read so. he can sleep in my lap (until I need to get up for more coffee). I also want to use the back roller on my back (not the same as a massage, but close enough) and stretch this morning. I think a regular daily stretching routine will do me some good–and of course, I need to use the back roller more regularly as well. Maybe even add some push-ups and crunches after a week, even. Who knows? The world is my oyster, as it were.

I made the decision to not go to Nashville Bouchercon yesterday. Tennessee is, sadly, a hate state, which they have shown abundantly this past week. They are, simply stated, Christofascists, homophobes, and racists, and I have no desire to go spend my money any place where the government thinks I am not worthy of my rights as an American citizen. Unless that dramatically changes–it won’t; there’s no one more stubborn than a Southern white supremacist who feels aggrieved–I won’t be going. I love Bouchercon, and I also know it’s not the local committee’s fault, or even the national board’s, that they picked such a backward place to have the event (and to be fair to them, when this location was picked Tennessee hadn’t gone down the path of state fascism they are having such a lovely time on now), and I also know that they can’t cancel or move it as contracts and so forth have already been signed and it would essentially be like starting over; I know it’s too late for that as well. I do feel slightly hypocritical about not going to Nashville when the event is coming to New Orleans the next year; as I have said before, our next gubernatorial election could easily set us on the same path as Florida, Texas, and Tennessee; my city always is defiant in those instances. I am sure Nashville is more progressive than their state legislature, just as New Orleans is more progressive than Louisiana’s legislature (a very low bar indeed). These kinds of things are tough, you know? From a moral and ethical standpoint, it’s not always easy to know what the right thing to do is, and as someone who is married to a conference organizer, I know how hard that job is and how so many things–like a state legislature–is beyond your control.

I have to say the recent “backlash” against Anheuser-Busch, over their relationship was a trans influencer, is fucking hilarious because the boycotters (has-beens like Kid Rock and Travis Tritt) have apparently never noticed that Anheuser-Busch has been queer-friendly and sponsoring queer events like Pride sicne at least the early 1990s, if not sooner. Even funnier are the tweets and social media posts about how “the company is about to find out how wrong they are to piss off the majority of their customers”–um, they are an international multi-billion dollar corporation who employ a lot of really smart people, and if you think they hadn’t researched and come to the conclusion that they will gain more customers by being inclusive than they will lose–and they don’t care about the ones they lose, than you’re an even bigger fool than previously thought. Anheuser-Busch, in fact, stepped up when Colorado went full-bore homophobic and the Coors family was outed for supporting homophobic legislation. This triggered a nation-wide queer-led boycott of Coors that lasted for ten years, and did the company irreparable harm. Budweiser, in fact, because the beer of choice for queers at that time, and I would be willing to be that outside of Colorado it would be incredibly difficult to find a queer bar with Coors on tap. I myself haven’t had a Coors since then, and even though the company backtracked and is fully supportive of the queer community now…I still will ask for a Bud Lite rather than a Coors Light when I’m in a bar and wanting something on tap. Major corporations who’ve been supportive and triggered a conservative backlash always chooses the queers, because most people oppose oppression and prefer fairness. How many times has the religious right come for Disney only to be soundly and humiliatingly defeated in their attempts to bring down the Mouse? (Ask Ron DeSantis how easy it is to defeat Disney.) The fact that Travis Tritt says he is going to put it in his rider that venues he plays cannot serve AB products is hilarious and going to backfire; the venues have contracts in place. The Superdome (not that Tritt would ever play there as he is incapable of filling it) has a contract with their beer supplier and they can’t just book an act and sign a one-event contract for another beer supplier so they just won’t book the act.

What’s even funnier is watching the right-wing snowflakes so butt-hurt about inclusion proudly switching to other beers…which all run Pride promotions and have gone out of their way to pursue queer dollars. Miller Lite, Coors, Michelob, Corona–good luck finding a beer that doesn’t.

Also, the Tennessee ordinance that prohibits men from performing for an audience in make-up? You do realize you just banned all theater. Even musicians–like Travis Tritt–wear stage make-up when they perform. But of course they’re never going to arrest the good ole boys, or stop a high production of Oklahoma! in its tracks (oh no! Teenagers being groomed to wear make-up!). Because the purpose of these laws is to target an already marginalized population because it makes bigots uncomfortable.

Your comfort level isn’t our fucking problem.

And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines.

Live to Tell

Work at home Friday, and all kinds of stuff to do and I simply have to stay focused today and all weekend in order to get everything finished that I need to get finished this weekend. It’s been a strange week, overall; the way the week after I turn in the final version of a book always is. I’ve also not had much down time for quite some time without something weighing on me; I’ve written two books since around 12/15 and of course, losing Mom. (I always worry about mentioning that every time I do; but I’m not really sure how and what I am supposed to feel or behave in this situation, so am working my way through it, okay?) I also worked on a short story during that time–two, actually; one I abandoned and another I revised and overhauled–and of course, I write this every morning. Some days I even do two entries. There are any number of saved drafts, too; ones about things I find outrageous, disgusting and deplorable, but want to be able to write more concisely and insightfully on those topics, primarily because I’m usually a bit foggy every morning when I start writing these; and while the drafts get written when I think about the subject (it can be any time of day), I generally don’t have the time to finish those drafts the way I want. Sometimes I go back to them and think, you are a whiny little bitch, aren’t you? And being whiny doesn’t move hearts and minds, does it? If anything, it hardens them more.

But it’s been a hot minute since I went what some of my friends call “full-on Julia Sugarbaker.” Don’t think that there haven’t been times I’ve wanted to, but I simply didn’t have the time to make certain that everyone I was saying was correct and sourced properly and so figured it was better to do nothing than do something wrong. Almost every day something happens or I see something that makes me apoplectic with rage–whether its the unabashed and unashamed racism, misogyny, transphobia or homophobia I see with far greater regularity than I should, quite frankly; there’s no excuse in 2023 for not knowing better than that; you choose to be a bigoted piece of shit asshole–but I try to calm myself and walk away from the computer or sign out of the infected social medium I am using and go do something else. There were other reasons, too; my day job is dependent on federal funding, after all, and I was also heavily involved in a national non-profit for a very long time. And while I feel no shame nor disgrace nor embarrassment about my beliefs and values, there was always the possibility that there could be fallout for the day job or my volunteer work. So I dialed myself back a bit–not completely, that could never happen in a million years; who I am is so deeply engrained in me that I can’t ever totally stop myself from making pointed observations about bigotry, hypocrisy, stupidity, ignorance, and false prophets. I also try to combat my innate natural selfishness every day, without as much success as I would like.

What happened in Tennessee yesterday was a disgrace and reeked of the end of Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow. Oh, look, another Southern legislature violated their oaths of office and their vow to defend and uphold the Constitution by expelling two Black men who disagreed with them. (The white woman, of course, got to stay,) It’s disgusting, and highly indicative of a political party with no ideas, no ethics, and no morals. All they have is an addictive thirst for power and a Fascistic mentality, a disgust for the Constitution and every principle this country was founded upon, and a need to tear down anyone who isn’t a cisgender white male in order to maintain white supremacy. The great irony is they consider themselves to be a “christian” party, when everything they do is not in the least Christ-like. I guess I missed the part of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus beseeched everyone to give their money to the rich and powerful? To not help the poor and sick because their situation is their own fault?

Yeah, I missed that part, just like I missed the part where we should all give money to Joel Osteen the apostate, because he shouldn’t have to fly commercial. Let people starve and live under highway underpasses! Joel needs a plane! And if you send him money and pray hard enough, God will shower you with riches!

Um, isn’t the whole point of Christianity is that your reward comes in the afterlife?

But empathy and compassion have no apparent place in organized right-wing Christianity; they made a religion in their own image and it’s so hateful, disgusting, and abhorrent no one outside of Margaret Atwood could imagined its end game back in the 1980’s (and sadly, she was right). People today still don’t see the hypocrisy, the greed, and the amorality that many sects of Christianity have come to follow. How is Joel Osteen or any of his co-horts any different than the Renaissance popes? At least they patronized artists. (Barbara Tuchman’s The March of Folly is perhaps one of the best books about how the stupidity, venality, and short-sightedness of incredibly fail men leads to disaster, the section called “The Renaissance Popes Trigger The Protestant Reformation” is particularly apt.) Just as the billionaires of our time (Bezos, Musk, the Koch family, Zuckerberg, Gates) are nothing more than the modern versions of the Robber Barons of the so-called Gilded Age. It’s always the same thing, cycling over and over again with us as a society and culture refusing to learn the lessons the past is crying out for us to learn.

The truth, which my community has been screaming at the Democratic party, progressives, and liberals for decades, is that the far-Right is just as Fascist as Hitler and Mussolini and their end game much the same: do we really think they’ll stop at banning books and “don’t say gay” bills and erasing transpeople? Of course not. It never ends. They want to purge this country of anyone who doesn’t see the United States as a paradise for straight white men. Are there parallels between our modern times and oh, say the 1920’s and early 1930’s in Germany? There absolutely are; I started noticing this in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s; can we not forget that as recently as thirty years ago the Republican party was more than happy to let everyone infected with HIV just die? (Their reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t much different, really.) They thought it was a good thing–and laughed about it–that gay men were dying.

They haven’t changed in thirty years. If anything, they’ve gotten worse.

They impeached Bill Clinton for lying about a blow job; but will defend the high crimes of the Trump family to the death. They claimed Bill Clinton didn’t have the “moral character” to be president, but voted for a lying con-artist who is not only a narcissist but a sociopath, who went through wives and mistresses and rape victims like Tom Brady carving up a defense in the Super Bowl. It always amazes me that the so-called party of family values is also the party of child rape, divorce, and adultery. The same people screaming about “groomers” to scapegoat drag queens and transwomen are actually the party filled with child rapists and kiddie porn enthusiasts. (Dennis Hastert, anyone?)

So, yeah, I’m probably going to start talking about these things a bit more. I am now sixty-one and I am sick and tired of right-wing garbage and trash and the Christian dystopia they seem to want us all to live in; where they decide what is sin and what isn’t (they of course can do as they please), who we can love and how to live our lives, all the while screaming about their fucking freedoms. It’s always funny to me that the progressive idea of freedom is live and let live, while the right’s is you have to do what we say and we’ll decide what’s right and wrong for you.

Kind of like a Renaissance pope.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Good Friday (I didn’t forget) and a nice Easter if that’s your jam; otherwise have a great day, okay?

Lucky Star

Thursday morning and all is well in the Lost Apartment…at least so far.

It was cold here yesterday; not that bad, really, but after the humidity and the over-eighty degree temperatures we’ve had over the weekend, the sudden twenty or so degree drop was a shock to the system, let me tell you. I was cold all day at the office (it’s always freezing at the office, no matter what) and so had to wear a hat most of the day. One of the drawbacks to being hair-free on my scalp is you feel the cold a lot more on your head. But it more than makes up for that in cost savings in hair products and haircuts, as well as the time saved not needing to wash and dry it.

And that’s my TED talk on why bald is best.

It’s cold again this morning, but the high for the day is 78, so I am assuming this cold spell is ending.

I did manage to get some work done on the book yesterday, but I also spent a lot of the day remembering and still processing this week’s episode of Ted Lasso. It really is such a phenomenally well-written show, and I went down all kinds of Internet fan wormholes–the fans are quite devoted–about theories and predictions and so forth for the rest of the season. In fact, after I finishing writing yesterday I rewatched it; that’s how much I enjoyed it, and I wanted to catch things I may not have during the first viewing (I used to watch each episode of Schitt’s Creek twice as well; what can I say, I am obsessive), which I did. And it’s weird, even when you know what happens, you enjoy just as much, if not more, than you did the first time. It really is a remarkably well done show, on every level; but the cast is absolutely perfect. We also caught up on The Mandalorian and started the new season of Yellowjackets before diving into the new season of Outer Banks, which isn’t…grabbing me the way it used to? We’ll keep watching, but we aren’t as addicted as we used to be; I’m not sure why that is. But the show is starting to pick up some; the first few episodes weren’t as gripping or entertaining as the previous seasons. I will report back, as I imagine we’ll probably finish it off this weekend sometime.

We’ve not been super busy this week at work, which has been enormously helpful with my reentry into reality. I am all caught up on my day job duties, which is a lovely thing. I am getting back to work on the book after the interruption of the weekend, and while it hasn’t been as smooth a reentry as returning to the office was, it’s getting there. A strong push tonight and over the weekend and I can get this all turned in, if I’m lucky, no later than Monday; but it might take a bit longer. I need to get this one finished so I can turn around and get the Scotty done, and I also have another manuscript to edit. I want to start reading some more, as well. If all goes well, by the time I am home from Malice I should be all freed up to get back to work on some other things, and I am really looking forward to that. Part of my writing impatience during the process of revising drafts is because I want to get back to work on the next thing, and I also think my familiarity with my own work is part of the reason I am so critical of it, if that makes sense? I had that insight yesterday; of course by the time the book comes out I am so heartily sick of it and familiar with it that it seems trite and bad; I’ve been through it so many times I’ve lost the ability to be able to judge it fairly and impartially. Familiarity does breed contempt, whoever said that was absolutely one thousand percent correct. The trick is fooling your brain into forgetting that familiarity, and I have yet to succeed in that effort.

It’s also kind of nice not having to spend so much of my time dealing with emails, frankly.

And of course, there’s always the disaster area that is the house. It’s been nice having Paul home this week–I am going to have to get used to having him home in the evenings, and it’s also going to take me a while to get used to potentially making dinner at night again; it’s literally been months since I’ve had to make dinner regularly. I still need to figure out what I need to get at the grocery store, and we need to start eating healthier for both of our sakes. I have also last track of the month; I was actually thinking this morning that there was still another week to get through before April rolls around but April is actually this weekend, isn’t it? Heavy sigh. I mean, the first quarter of the year has already passed–but then again, New Year’s feels like it was about a thousand years ago. It’s been quite a 2023 for me thus far, but hey–I’m still here. The jury’s still out on whether or not that is a good thing…

But it’s been a decent week thus far, if a bit off–as weeks after events inevitably are, but I didn’t seem to resent giving up the authorly life for reality quite as much this time as I usually do, and I do think that’s a good thing. Maybe I am finally starting to meld the different compartments of my life into one rather than continuing to keep them segregated from each other and never the twain shall meet. Is it better to have all aspects of my life integrated into one? It’s so weird, because I started living different lives so very young in my life that it’s really all I know, and having such a clear demarcation line before between the “who I really am” life and “who I have to pretend to be to live in the world” life kind of carried over and spilled over into the rest of my life after I came out and tried to make my personal life all one world…but I somehow kept having different worlds. Day job versus writing; New Orleans non-writing friends versus writing friends; friends in New Orleans versus friends outside of New Orleans, and so on and so on and so on, that it’s kind of become my way of navigating my overall life, and I am not entirely sure now–at sixty-one going on sixty-two–how unhealthy that actually might be. It’s always worked for me, but just because something works doesn’t make it healthy, you know?

Tomorrow I get to sleep late and work at home, which is always a lovely and quite marvelous thing. I am really going to miss my work-at-home Fridays, when they are eventually and gradually eliminated (as we know they inevitably must be). I slept well again last night and yet again didn’t really want to get up this morning, but I don’t necessarily feel tired or even physically asleep (which isn’t a pleasant feeling, frankly) which I am taking as a win. I have been released from Twitter jail, but the whole experience didn’t exactly leave me with a desire to return there, to be honest. It really is a cesspool, and I am much quicker to anger–the subconscious grief–than I usually am (and I’ve always had a low boiling point to begin with), so avoiding that hellscape is probably also more healthy for me mentally.I really need to figure out how to curate it better so I don’t find myself getting angry (it isn’t irrational) at the monsters and trolls who love to hang out there and be the assholes they don’t have the courage to be in person. Even though I could do nothing but doomscroll yesterday. I did check out some trending hashtags about Ted Lasso, and I am very pleased to see that the Collin Hughes is closeted story-line enraged the homophobes, who are now accusing it of being “woke” and aren’t going to watch anymore. Rather than enraging me with the why can’t they ever just keep their mouths fucking shut and let us enjoy something instead I got smug and happy because homophobes shouldn’t be able to watch and love the joy that is Ted Lasso. You don’t get to be an asshole and find joy in the magic of this show, and if it’s taken you three seasons to figure out the show is “woke” (however the hell the rage-monsters define that now), you’re kind of stupid. The message of the show is kindness and helping others to be their best selves, really, and those connections are the most important. Where precisely does bigotry and hatred fit into that message, precisely? So, stop watching. It’ll still air and will always be available to stream, and oh, one last thing: The CEO of Apple is a gay man. Ted Lasso is an Apple TV show. Did you really think Apple would air a homophobic show? You really are too fucking stupid to live…and you shouldn’t be allowed to breed.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a happy March 30th, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.

Borderline

Wednesday and Pay the Bills Day again. Huzzah? Huzzah, I suppose. Dark is pushing against my windows again this morning, and yet again I didn’t want to leave my bed this morning. I’m not sure what that’s about, probably lingering tiredness from the weekend, most likely. But I had a good day yesterday. I got some work on the book done and it wasn’t like pulling teeth in the least, which is always a good sign, and I think the book is taking shape rather well. Huzzah!

Paul was home last night, which was wonderful and something I’ve missed, frankly. He even went to the gym for the first time in months! I’d forgotten how nice it was to have Paul and Scooter lying on the couch cuddling while we watched television (Scooter always sleeps in my lap for a little bit so I don’t feel neglected before moving to the couch; he even gives me a guilty look, like he’s saying “sorry but Daddy is more comfy” before he decamps)–and we watched Ted Lasso. I really love this show so much! It’s amazing how it’s funny and charming at the same time; and how much I’ve genuinely come to care for the characters; it’s end is going to be as heartbreaking as when Schitt’s Creek ended. If someone would have told me that one of my favorite characters in Season 3 would be Jamie “did you just call me pre-Madonna?” Tartt, I would have laughed my ass off. Like Schitt’s Creek, I think the reason this show resonates so deeply with its fanbase is because of the character growth, and no one (except Rupert) is an actual asshole. And (spoiler!) yes, I did think Colin might be gay before we actually found out for sure last night, and what an excellent episode it was–handling beautifully the issue of what it’s like to be gay and on a professional sports team in a mostly homophobic world. Anyone who’s ever played a sport and was closeted can absolutely relate to the moment when Isaac said something homophobic in the locker room and despite yourself, you involuntarily flinch slightly, shrivel a little bit, and then just take a deep breath and shake it off. It also made me even more excited to see the rest of the season and what they have in store for us.

Needless to say, I love this show and while I definitely hate the thought of it ending, I also want to see how it ends and watch it all again. (I may have to watch last night’s again, in case I missed things. I actually do generally watch every episode twice, so I can catch the things I overlooked while laughing or didn’t pay as much attention to the first time around. Obsessive? Just a bit. Some things never change, you know?)

Hilariously, I am now banned from posting on Twitter for up to a week for calling out a phony right-winger because I committed “hateful conduct” while J. K. Rowling is out there happily and gleefully being a homophobic TERF piece of shit multiple times a day. But at the same time, I’m kind of glad; Twitter is a cesspool and of course, since the needle-dicked South African racist homophobe emerald mine heir who thinks he’s a business genius took over. I need to figure out how to keep Twitter a space that makes me happy; I have a lot of friends who are on Twitter that I enjoy interacting with there, and ironically, the reason I even responded to the snowflake on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in the first place is because her un-American tweets somehow showed up on the hashtag thread for Ted Lasso I was reading this morning. But the fact that a Supreme Court justice at the state level’s intern went crying to Twitter about my replies about her lack of understanding of how the Constitution and the government work says everything I need to know about their hypocrisy and lies as well as exposing how much worse Twitter is now; people I’ve reported for straight up homophobia and transphobia do not “violate” their rules. They also put an adult content warning on my blog yesterday because it had a picture of the statue of David in it. Yes, Twitter agrees with Florida that Michelangelo’s David is pornographic; and that’s really all we need to know about Twitter, isn’t it?

I also don’t like that being there makes me angry. If I had a dollar for every response I started writing only to delete…yeah, Twitter is very unpleasant. A dark place that speaks to the darker impulses that lurk within all of us.

Today feels colder than it’s been in a while; probably because it rained yesterday. Yup, it’s only 58 degrees today, which is why it was so cold in the apartment (the air was on yesterday rather than the heat) this morning and why I really didn’t want to get out of bed, either. I am going to head straight home from work today, too; no errands that need to be run but certainly there are any number of chores that need doing. I just wish Scooter wouldn’t demand my lap the entire time I am writing so when I am finished and acquiesce, him purring and sleeping on me always puts me into a relaxed don’t want to get up and do anything mood, which is why the Lost Apartment continues to be a disgusting mess all day every day, which is seriously aggravating.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day. Constant Reader!

Breakin’ Dishes

Well, it definitely is not gout, Constant Reader. The antibiotic cream prescribed by my doctor has made a remarkable difference with my toe since I started using it yesterday; this morning it isn’t even reddish anymore and bending it hardly is noticeably painful. AH, modern medicine, and sorry I doubted you, Doctor. I did get tired eventually last evening; shortly after finally finishing yesterday’s post I repaired to my easy chair where I watched a few more episodes of Netflix’ The Movies That Made Us, primarily the ones about Friday the 13th, Aliens, and Nightmare on Elm Street. It’s always somewhat lovely to revisit pop culture of the 1980’s, even though it was mostly a pretty shitty decade overall. The difference between 80’s movies and 70’s cinema was dramatic, as I learned during my Cynical 70’s Film Festival back during the early days of the pandemic when I was making hundreds of condom packs every day sitting in my living room during what I was never completely convinced weren’t the end times.

I do have some more cleaning and straightening up to do around here today around working on my book. Yes, I am definitely digging into the book today. I slept like the dead last night, and even stayed up later than usual (Paul came home before I went to bed) and slept an extra hour later this morning being a lag-a-bed until nine (the horror!). I’m feeling very well rested this morning on all three planes of existence–physical, emotional, intellectual–so it should be a great and highly productive day. It’s cold this morning–in the forties outside–and yesterday I had to turn the air on because it was stuffy in here and the clothes weren’t drying. Turn the air conditioning on and cool it down a couple of degrees and it made a significant difference. (I’m always interested in that weird range of temperature where it’s really not hot enough to need the air conditioning, but the air is thick enough so that clothes won’t dry unless it’s colder and the damp is taken out of the air; I also always sleep best on the night that I launder the bed linens) But I am going to have some coffee, do some straightening up here in the office, maybe read for an hour or so, and then get cleaned up and parked at my desk for however long I can stand it today. My coffee is tasting pretty marvelous this morning too; always a plus and always a good sign.

I also spent some time last night revisiting Vito Russo’s The Celluloid Closet in what was probably the first time in about thirty years, which is kind of terrifying when you think about it. I discovered Russo back in the day when I was discovering the rich culture and heritage of my community, when I was venturing into gay bookstores and had started reading the gay papers and magazines in search of my people and some sort of definition of what it meant to be a gay man in the United States at that time. The Russo book was the first seminal text in critiquing the entertainment industry and its participatory role in enforcing the homophobic standards of the times (if not helping to create those standards by the erasure of queer people and themes in entertainments). Russo set out to show how Hollywood’s erasure, or stereotypic rendering, of queer people served to enforce those social dynamics and mores that were suppressing our community and relegating those who identified as members of that community as outsiders, a lower caste, and separate from the dominant culture. I’d love to see a popular nonfiction version of Russo’s work that focuses on representation in crime fiction; I have neither the research skills nor the patience to write such a book myself. One of the things I enjoyed the most about the Russo book was finding out what films had queer content erased from their original source material; like the film Crossfire, about anti-Semitism in the military, was based on a book called The Brick Foxhole, which was about homophobia in the military; the murder victim wasn’t a Jewish soldier but a gay one. The alcoholic Ray Milland won an Oscar for playing in the film of The Lost Weekend drank because he had writer’s block; in the book he drank because he couldn’t handle his homosexuality in a homophobic society. The mini-series made from Dress Gray saved the reveal of the dead cadet’s sexuality for a plot twist at the end; in Lucien Truscott IV’s novel it was right there, revealed on page one and treated, really, throughout the entire book as not a particularly big deal (I’ve been meaning to reread Dress Gray; it was one of the few books I read as a teenager that didn’t treat homosexuality as a hideous moral failing, a massive sin, and/or something just revolting and disgusting, just as I’ve been meaning to reread Pat Conroy’s The Lords of Discipline–you just know there had to be a queer or two at Carolina Military Institute).

I also remember discovering queer mysteries for the first time at the gay bookstore in Tampa, and thinking you’ve always wanted to write mysteries, why don’t you write them with gay characters and themes? And thus the seed was planted–by Michael Nava, Richard Stevenson, and Steve Johnson–that grew into my becoming a gay mystery writer in every sense of the term: I’m gay, I’m a gay writer, and I write gay mysteries.

So, that’s where my mind was last night; thinking about the very limited queer rep I’d been exposed to as a reader growing up and how discovering gay fiction by gay writers about gay life and experiences–books–essentially changed my life and the trajectory of my writing. I think my writing began to improve when I started writing what I knew–the tired old trope of write what you know–because I was writing about my truths and experiences and feelings about being a gay man in a homophobic country; that was how I found authenticity and truth in my writing, and was able to extrapolate that outward into writing about other lives, other people, other experiences.

And of course, the Lefty Award banquet is tonight. I’m cheering on my friends and fellow nominees from afar. It’s a pleasure and a thrill to be nominated for Best Humorous Mystery; I never expected in a million years to ever be nominated for a Lefty and then it happened, so A Streetcar Named Murder continues on as my “first” of many things. I’m not sure which of the other four nominees will have their name called tonight, but it’s an honor to lose to any of my fellow nominees. (I also never thought I’d be nominated for an Agatha, and yet here we are; I’ve been having a hell of a twelve month period, am I not? Two Anthony nominations, a Lefty, and an Agatha; who’s a lucky Gregalicious?)

And on that note, I am going to make another cup of coffee and go curl up for a bit with a book for a little reading pleasure this morning before I go to work. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.