Category: homophobia

How You Gonna See Me Now

I had something go a little viral (in a very small way) on Threads; New Year’s morning when I saw, after what happened here, that garbage “humans” were blaming “the border”1 for it (um, well actually it was an American military vet, bitch) and posted MTG needs to keep New Orleans out of her hellmouth and at last count, I was at well over a thousand likes and an equally insane amount of reposts–and no “libt@rd” replies for me to block, either. Now, imagine had I put that on Twitter (fuck you now and forever, Elmo, I will always deadname your shitty app). Would I have escaped being swarmed by right wing trolls? Probably not, which was one of the many reasons that helped me break the addiction to Twitter and delete my account. Sometimes I miss interacting with people there (Jericho Brown, for one, and other friends, too), but I do not miss the toxicity and the really bad takes from trashy trolls and bots.

The energy around town yesterday was very off. Of course we all talked about the incident all day at work–the clients, too–and the vibe that’s always there, even when you’re not paying attention, just didn’t feel right. I saw a lot of social media posts yesterday that were love notes to New Orleans, and the love notes far far outnumbered the disgusting bottom-feeding ones (see MTG reference above). And reading those, I started remembering back over the years. Not just the years I’ve been so blessed to live here, but the ones going back to the day when Bienville came up Bayou St. John from Lake Pontchartrain to the island surrounded by swamp alongside the Mississippi River. New Orleans has had this kind of horror before; the biggest mass death event for gay men until Pulse was the Upstairs Lounge Fire in the early 1970s. Hundreds and thousands died during fever season. There was bubonic plague during the Wilson administration, and a massive hurricane a few years later that wiped out entire communities. New Orleans has always understood that death is a part of life, and no one knows when Death will come for you–so live every day like it’s your last; squeeze every bit of joy and pleasure and happiness out of life you can because it can all go away tomorrow, chér. And I remembered back to that time I came here for my birthday in 1994, and an entire new world and life opened up in front of my eyes as I got out of the cab at the corner of Bourbon and St. Ann–and I’ve said before, the city whispered in my ear come live here and I will make your dreams come true.

I love my city, and it will do what it does best. It will mourn its dead and raise money for survivors and celebrate the lives of those lost in this horrific act, the way we always do. New Orleans will not stop being what it is or who we are. We held Carnival after Hurricane Katrina and it was marvelous, absolutely fucking marvelous, and exactly what we needed when we needed it the most. New Orleans will always celebrate being alive, and that’s really part of the charm of this city; not only do we welcome everyone we encourage and celebrate difference, and find joy in finding community all together. What will Carnival be like after this? Joyous but cautious, I would imagine; but as always, Carnival puts everyone into a great mood and we celebrate that we’re still here.

I was tired yesterday–didn’t rest enough I guess after returning to the gym, which I am hoping to do again later on today–so I didn’t get as much writing as I would have liked to get done; I did take Chapter One to over five thousand words from slightly more than three thousand; not bad for a working week. I am hoping to get through the rest of the original chapters this weekend (no college football, nor do I have as much to do as I usually do on a weekend, either, which is absolutely 1000% awesome. The drive home was an exercise in Security Theater; cops and police cars everywhere, and they’d closed off the CBD around the Superdome completely, which was a nightmare as the CBD is the area closest to the interstate–how many people get home from work–so maneuvering around stupid drivers and closed streets and blocked lanes was quite the adventure in irritation and frustration.

Sigh.

Also: I am sick and tired of white racists saying “it’s not safe!!!!” about New Orleans when what you really mean is “too many Blacks live there.” This usually goes along with some pious weeping about how much they used to love New Orleans back when it was safer…newsflash, K-K-Karen: New Orleans is as safe as it ever has been. When you were a child, your parents never talked to you about crime, but when precisely was New Orleans this paragon of safety? New Orleans was always a major port–and major ports aren’t exactly known for decorous behavior and peace and quiet. Was it safer when the Mafia ran the Quarter? When the Upstairs Lounge burned with over thirty people inside? When prostitution was legal in Storyville, or when New Orleans was the liquor capital of North America during Prohibition? Crime has always been rampant here, and this vile racist pretense that before desegregation New Orleans set the standard for law-abiding American cities? Hardly. Just admit your parents or grandparents didn’t want the kids in your family to go to school with Black kids and be done with it, okay?

I feel pretty confident that twink-in-barely-more-than-a-thong will trigger the puritans.

I wonder how long before this post gets flagged by social media puritans as “adult content?” Yesterday’s post was flagged as porn by the cosplaying Puritans at Threads–a man in his underwear is pornography; bare female breasts or some woman with an enormous ass in only a thong proliferate everywhere. Seriously–fuck all of the way off, censors–and think about the message you are actually sending women with your selective application of “oops, this is porn! Shame on you!” to shots of men in swimsuits or underwear, but okaying degrading and demeaning pictures of women every fucking day.

But…Facebook began as a way to rank and score girls who wouldn’t fuck Zuckerberg by a hotness scale, so here we are.

It’s a work at home Friday for me today, and we’re going to Costco later, after I finish my work at home duties. The house is in better shape than usual (thank you, day off on Wednesday and cleaning), so there isn’t as much housework to get done this weekend. My muscles are tight this morning, so I am going to have to do some stretching, and then head back to the gym tomorrow. I also learned something else about myself yesterday–I always rush through my workouts and get extremely frustrated if I have to wait on a machine. When I went the other day, I took my time. I moved through the exercises relatively quickly, but I did them all slowly, didn’t allow myself to get frustrated, and didn’t try to rush through it. And again, I realized I was so focused for so long on using my time effectively and efficiently and trying to do everything as quickly as I can that…it was much easier to get annoyed and frustrated and cut the workout short or something like that. This time, taking my time and actually feeling the muscles work instead of going through so fast that I don’t notice any burn until I am finished isn’t the best way to exercise. I also don’t have the anxiety anymore, so I also don’t feel like I need to get through everything as fast as I can because I don’t have as much to do as I used to. But the good news is my shoulder and arm do not feel any more sore or fatigued than anywhere else; in fact, it actually feels better than it has in a while.

Louder, for those in the back: clearly I should have continued exercising after I was done with Physical Therapy. But…I wasn’t in a good place for the most part last year, so it is what it is and I can’t change that now so move forward and remember. And also remember how good it felt to go to the gym and exercise in the first place.

I also started writing a synopsis of The Summer of Lost Boys last night, too–which felt good and was kind of fun to do. I also need to work on some short stories this weekend, run a few errands, and do some picking up around here. I want to write some today after work, and I think I’m pretty much done with the college football play-offs. There’s no one left that I care about watching; in fact, not a fan of any of the final four, to be honest. LSU already played their bowl game2 and so…who cares? It’s Gymnastics season now, and LSU is the defending national champions, so that’s very cool.

We’re watching Cross, which we’re enjoying; we also finished Hysteria! earlier this week, and it was a lot of fun.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a terrific Friday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later today; one can never be certain.

  1. They still are blaming illegal immigrants despite the fact the killer was born and raised here and was a veteran of our military! They are quite literally the fucking worst humans ever born. The next four years are just going to be a shit show. ↩︎
  2. They did win, by the way, beating Baylor 44-31. ↩︎

I Got My Mind Made Up

Woke up to a new year! How exciting….although it doesn’t feel any different than yesterday, other than I don’t have to go into the office today, which is awesome. And of course, as soon as I signed into social media, I saw DM’s and posts asking me if Paul and I were “okay”, which was puzzling, so I went to NOLA.com and I guess there was a terrorist that attacked Bourbon Street last night, driving his truck into the crowd and shooting at police officers? I just saw where the attack occurred–Bourbon and Canal intersection–because I was wondering how that was possible since all the blocks are blocked off to traffic all night, so I knew it had to be an intersection on Bourbon Street, as those are only places on Bourbon you can have a car, or drive. How terrible–and I bet they lock the whole city down for the Super Bowl; shades of the 2002 Super Bowl here after 9/11–when I was coming home from training a client and was stopped at Poydras Street so the military (complete with tanks) could parade from the river to the Superdome in an act of theater designed, no doubt, to make us feel safer; it had the opposite effect on me. It just made me think about how I missed the days where we couldn’t imagine something like that happening.

Yeesh, indeed.

My New Year’s entries are generally about my goals for the new year, and I always explain why I have goals instead of resolutions–everyone inevitably breaks their resolutions, so I’ve never felt they were as important as setting goals for the new year. I don’t always achieve those goals, but they have been enormously helpful in the past and it really feels like I’ve done something when I accomplish one of the goals, or the goal makes positive change in my life, which is always very pleasant. One goal is to continue not participating in the legacy media, by never clicking or putting eyes on their broadcasts or articles. I will never subscribe to the Times or the Post ever again, and I do feel this goal is one that can be set and is completely attainable.

Another goal is to not do any emotional labor for anyone or anything that isn’t Paul, Sparky, my dad, or myself. I’ve been pretty good about that throughout 2024, and it is definitely one of the better things I did this past year was close myself off to other people’s problems. I am going to continue to not attend mystery conferences and conventions this year, and one of those important goals is to not financially support places that allow rampant homophobia and then do nothing when things are reported to them. I’m certainly not taking shit from anyone ever again in this community, so my decision to stay away and not participate in the community anymore is probably for the best for all y’all, because I’m calling this shit out now whenever it happens and since most straight people prefer no conflict, my calling shit out and calling out people for trying to gloss over outright homophobia from now on isn’t going to be fun for people anyway. Heaven forbid the racists and sexists and homophobes be made to feel uncomfortable, but it’s okay for us to feel unwelcome, uncomfortable and unwanted. Maybe we can start calling them convocations instead of conferences and conventions, since keeping Klan attendees is more important than keeping the people they target. FUCK ALL THE WAY OFF. And racist Bouchercon attendees? Feel free to go be racist on Bourbon Street at one in the morning and see how that ends for your skank ass. And for the record, hate is what leads to things like the attack on Bourbon Street last night, so by all means let’s keep encouraging that kind of behavior by glossing it over and acting like it’s not a big deal and it’s just “free speech” until someone is killed. American hatred, I swear, is like kudzu.

The most important goal for the year is to focus more on my writing career and give it the energy and the oxygen it’s always deserved but never got from me. I’ve always felt like I’ve always made my writing the lowest thing on my priority list, and that juggling between day job responsibilities, life responsibilities and the writing itself (let alone the promotion side of things) has always ended with me feeling like my writing isn’t a priority; part of the problem I have always had with saying no to people and to doing things is that fear and anxiety so controlled me and my actions for so long that I’d always end up making it the lowest priority–and “friends” who’d blithely dismiss my “well, I have a book due” with “you always get it done” aren’t really friends; any friends who’d want you to put aside one of the most important things in your life to do something for them aren’t really friends. Writing is what makes me happiest, and not writing always makes me miserable. Part of the depression of the last year or so was enhanced because I wasn’t writing–and whenever I tried, it was hard to get words down and they were terrible; I did some pretty terrible writing this year (as I am finding as I edit these first six chapters of the next Scotty; I did some work on that yesterday after work which was cool) and plan to do some more today, too. I need to get the ebook of Jackson Square Jazz edited and sent to the formatter–BIG priority, especially since it’s the twentieth anniversary of the trade paperback and its Lambda nomination (the hardcover came out the year before). I need to get my website finished, and I need to learn how to do promotion in the digital age, don’t I? Kind of sad that I’ve been doing this for twenty three years this January 20th, and still don’t know what I am doing. I also want to push myself more with my writing going forward, too. This Scotty is a tricky one, since I want the entire thing to take place between the arrival of a hurricane’s first bands and have the story finished before the final band passes and the storm is completely over.

I also need to be better organized going forward, and need to stay on top of things better. I need to file as I go and clean as I go–thanks again, McDonalds, for burning that into my head–and that includes cleaning out the attic and the storage space so I can stop paying for it. My memory is pretty much gone these days, so I need to be better about making lists and consulting them (they don’t do any good if you never look at them), as well as doing things when I get home and I am still in work-mode from being at the office. It doesn’t hurt to feed Sparky, file stuff, do dishes and so forth before writing or reading. I also need to be better about reading; if I read for an hour or so every day I’ll gradually get through that TBR pile for sure. I also need to be better about keeping house.

I know I say this every year but I am going to be healthier this year, and by that I mean taking better care of myself. After Mom died, I intended to be better about all this stuff, but I’d also injured myself so I couldn’t go to the gym either. And I did get some of it taken care of–I got hearing aids so I can hear better and finally spent the money to get my teeth fixed–and of course I needed about a full year to completely recover physically from the surgery. But if I stretch every morning when I get up, and if I go to the gym two or three times per week, and take walks on the days I don’t go to the gym–I’ll get healthier. Sounds easy, doesn’t it, but the reality is much harder to stay on track. I’ve also noticed in the last few weeks that I am not as groggy and tired as I was getting up so early for such a long time; I think I am finally adjusting to it, and I am not always tired when I get home from work, either.

All attainable and doable, I am pretty certain. So on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines and get some things done around here so I can head over to the gym. I am going to read until it’s time to go to the gym. Have a great day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check back in with you again at some point.

Double Vision

Well, 2024 was a shit show of a year, wasn’t it? Then again, haven’t they all been pretty bad since 2015 and the golden escalator? It was, however, also a year with a lot of clarity for one Gregalicious; when I woke up to certain realities about life in general and started centering my own self in my life. So, for personal growth I’d say it was a good year; as for everything else in the world, maybe not so much. I didn’t publish anything in 2024; one of the few years since I started writing professionally where I actually had nothing–not even a short story–on my publications list. I did no volunteer work anywhere for anyone, and I just focused on my own recovery, my own self-discovery, and my own investigation into who I am and why I am who I am. It was a year in which I continued looking back, something that began in 2023 when Mom died, and came to a lot of realizations about myself and my history–and made peace with a lot of things that used to make me angry to remember and think about. I can reflect on some of those things now and not get angry. This was also my first full year on my anti-anxiety medication and the loss of anxiety from my life (and everything that branched out from the anxiety) has made such an amazing difference. It’s nice not having my anxiety controlling everything I do, and it’s also very interesting to see how many automatic coping mechanisms I had put into place to manage the anxiety, or at least keep it sort of controlled–especially when it comes to driving.

This was the year I turned against the legacy media, and frankly, I’ve not missed it in the least. I was worried about the election, not going to lie about that, but I also thought it was incredibly shitty they all decided to go with the “Biden is too old” narrative Trump and Fox were pushing on everyone, reporting it breathlessly like it was actually news while completely ignoring the fact that his opponent was a sun-downing narcissistic piece of shit. There have been two different sets of reporting on politics since the 1990s: the lies and demagoguery of Fox News, followed by the legacy media’s reporting on the lies Fox told like they were absolute facts. The positive glee with which the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and MSNBC reported, rubbing their hands with excitement as they basically committed election interference for the Right yet again, shivving President Biden in the process; has anyone done a wellness check on that shit stain George Clooney yet? He’s managed to keep a low profile since he did Trump’s bidding for him. I do not miss legacy media, and hope they all circle the drain and fail. Maybe then, and only then, will we get the kind of media we deserve in this country and not the failing legacy media. The way they are slanting the Luigi Mangione story is also out-of-touch and offensive; why hasn’t the New York Times sent a reporter to a rust belt diner to see how those MAGA voters feel about Mangione? Oh, no, we don’t care about those viewpoints anymore. No, the legacy media thought they’d help MAGA return to power and then lead the resistance, like they thought they did in the first term. Newsflash: you didn’t.

Has there ever been a pundit class that believed the smoke they blew up their own asses like our current batch? Well, I am not watching them anymore. I follow some pundits on Youtube that I enjoy, but to be honest…I don’t feel like I’m missing anything, to tell you the truth, Constant Reader. I’ve always loved and cared about my country, even as I looked at it very clearly as more and more myths fell the older I got, but I also don’t feel like I need to follow the news everyday or participate in all of the partisan, pro-corporate, pro-rich let’s turn politics into a reality show bullshit. We deserve better.

As someone who witnessed Watergate and everything that followed, I bought into the mythology of journalistic integrity and the importance of truth; wasn’t that why his creators made Superman’s secret identity a journalist? I had planned on being a journalist myself when I went to college, and my intro class was all about integrity and honesty, which I also took as gospel for years, like a fool. Why did I ever think modern journalism had left the days of yellow journalism, of Hearst and Pulitzer, behind? My naive outlook, no doubt, and belief in American mythology. Journalistic integrity–which was beaten into our heads by every sitcom that decided to have one of the characters become a reporter for the school paper–was always for sale and never could be depended upon. So I happily bid adieu to thumb-on-the-scales journalism, and Constant Reader, I am never going back.

As for other things from 2024, let’s see. I fought with my health insurance company over a medication I need for seven months, thank you for that, bottom-feeding scum-sucking health insurance companies. This affected the rest of my care, and forced me to go even further into debt in the new year for medical treatments and so forth, and I am not entirely sure when exactly I will be able to recover from this financial distress. Yay for health insurance, and the entire health care industry. But at least it was straightened out, and the medication was approved through 2030. I also got some people at the insurance company in trouble. Too bad, so sad. Womp fucking womp, trash.

There was a lot of stress for me this past year, which was made even more interesting by the change in medications. My brain didn’t experience either stress or anxiety or even depression this year; my moods stayed fairly level all through the mess, but it definitely weighed on me subconsciously, just like delaying dealing with the holidays for a year didn’t really work the way I wanted other than pushing it back a year. Well done, dumb-shit. Ah, well.

What a strange, strange year it’s been.

And on that note, we’ll be hurtling into the abyss of 2025 at midnight. So, until tomorrow morning, I’m heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely lovely eve of the New Year, Constant Reader.

Take Me Home to Somewhere

Sunday morning and it’s sunny outside. It rained off and on for most of the day yesterday, with marvelous thunderstorms bracketing the day. The sky is clear and blue and the sun is out, so I suspect we’re done with the storms. I slept well–and late–this morning, and I’ve already decided to let the day take its own course. I have some dishes to put away and laundry to fold, and I also need to run a couple of errands this morning. I do feel rested this morning, which is a good thing. There are only three days left in 2024, and while I would ordinarily think good riddance to 2024, I don’t have very high hopes about how 2025 is going to go for any of us. Louisiana continues to circle the drain, as our governor seems determined to destroy the state and impoverish everyone (but there won’t be any of the woke nonsense down here, you betcha!), and we all know Republicans can’t govern for shit–already proven from 2017-2021–and they are already fighting a nasty civil war between their Techbros and the MAGA base currently, which gives us a pretty good idea of how the next four years are going to go. Yay.

I really didn’t do much of anything yesterday, really. I rewatched a classic LSU football game–Paul was out with some friends–and went down a bunch of rabbit holes on Youtube doing research. Researching the 1970s is trippy for me, and being reminded of things I’d long forgotten about–products, commercials, movies, books, etc.–inevitably brings a bunch of other memories back with them; buying Hardy Boys books at the Zayre’s, riding my bike to the 7/11 to get milk and a comic book, walking to the bus stop at St. Dominic’s (and walking home from there after school), and reading in bed on the weekends with a bag of either Taco-flavored Doritos or Bar-B-Q Fritos. Research is research, after all, and opening my mind to recollections of my past–which was a very long time ago–is kind of weird, since I spent so much of my life never looking back. I may try to do some writing today–stranger things have happened, after all–but I am not placing any demands on myself this weekend. I have Wednesday off for New Year’s, which is weird, and will probably wind up having the play-offs on all day while I do other things. I still haven’t finished reading my book, either, and I really need to get back to that this week, if not today. It ain’t going to finish reading itself, you know.

And I can’t get deeper into the TBR pile without actually, you know, reading the books.

Memories are tricky things, actually, and one of the most important tricks our (writers on a grander scale, and people in general) brains play on us is how it colors the way we remember things. We not only remember how things were said and who said them, but we also remember how we felt at the time–and those feelings also color how we remember things. I am sure all people, once they’ve reached a certain age, are stunned at how differently our parents remember things from our childhood, and how little we actually did understand when we were younger. It’s also possible for those memories, colored so strongly by protective emotions, to change and become more embedded in our brains with our coloring firmly in place. One of the reasons I never bothered to re-examine disputes or disagreements with people from the part is because I know my memories may not be exact and are definitely have been rewritten in my head to make me the innocent victim, or merely confirmed that I am a terrible person. The first few decades of my life were very chaotic; one of the things I’ve tried to work very hard on as an adult the last few decades was to remove chaos–or agents of chaos–from my life. If you’ve either hurt or deeply offended me, I don’t want to waste any more of my time on you. I don’t want to argue with you, I don’t want to explain why you were hurtful because I shouldn’t have to.

If I have to explain to you how you’ve been hurtful you really aren’t worth my time.

Part of the problem with writing about the past and going from your own memories and experiences is that tendency to make one’s self into a hero even when you have not been very heroic. I’ve kind of always considered myself cowardly for not coming out sooner, for not facing up to who I am, and not getting it all worked out in my head long before I actually did. Wanting to capture that sense of having a dark secret that you so desperately want to share, wishing the world was different yet knowing that it isn’t and probably never will be, looking ahead at the rest of your life as it yawns before you as endless misery and self-denial and self-loathing isn’t exactly inspiring, and capturing all of this on the page from the perspective of a twelve-year-old about to start high school is going to be hard without making him seem self-pitying and kind of pathetic. My own self-loathing about who I was as a child is also kind of self-defeating; I need to forgive myself at some point for not being a good little straight boy because that was never who I was supposed to be. If anything, I should loathe the middle-class cookie cutter suburban existence everyone tried to force me into–a square peg into a round hole, as it were. I suppose writing The Summer of Lost Boys will force me to face those feelings and work through them by writing about a character similar to me but not really me, if that makes sense? I know writing Bury Me in Shadows helped me come to terms with my family’s history–and Southern history in a broader context; #shedeservedit helped me come to terms with my own high school experience, and so maybe, this is the last step to letting go of a lot of things over which I had no control that I’ve punished myself for most of my adult life.

Chaos is never fun, really. I’ve also always felt bad for people who chose chaos rather than cutting it out of your life. I don’t want to waste any more of my life doing emotional labor for undeserving people who are determined to hold onto being miserable rather than letting things go and living more positively–who wants all that negativity in their life? Why would anyone choose that? And yes, I am sure I am vastly over-simplifying here–many people are trapped in horrible jobs and horrible life situations over which they have very little, if any, control over their lives.

There are several books I want to write about my suburb, in all honesty–just as there are any number of Alabama and New Orleans and Kansas books I want to write…which is never going to happen as long as I continue to not write.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines and go run my errands. Not sure what I am going to do for the day other than that, but I like having a day with no plans to do much of anything, frankly. Have a great Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later or tomorrow before work! Thanks, as always, for stopping by this morning.

The Boss

Work at home Friday! I didn’t have to go into the office today after all; the person I was covering for didn’t need me to cover for them after all, so I get to drink my own coffee and do some of my work-at-home chores in my pajamas–including my team meeting. Yay! Yesterday was a gray, rainy day, the kind that is also cold so you get that lovely cold dampness that goes right through you to the bone. I ran my errands on the way home, and I don’t have to leave the house at all today unless I so choose–and I am rather leaning towards choosing no definitively already. I woke up the remnants of a thunderstorm; everything outside my windows is wet and dripping. Yeah, definitely not leaving the house today if I don’t absolutely have to–I can run errands and make groceries tomorrow. I am going to do some chores this morning when I need a break from the computer–dishes, laundry, picking up, etc.–but thanks to the midweek weekend we enjoyed because of the holiday, I am not as far behind on housework as I usually am. Sparky let me sleep late this morning, and was a little cuddlebug before I did get up. It’s not even about getting more sleep anymore, it’s more along the lines of way too comfortable for me to get up. Paul was at the gym when I got home from doing some minor errands after work last night, and then after he came home he went upstairs to work for the evening, leaving me and Sparky to entertain ourselves downstairs, which is why I did some picking up and cleaning last night. Looking around this morning, I can honestly wonder why I didn’t do more last night. Hmmm.

I worked a bit on a Substack essay last night, too; the one I worked the most on is about outing and speculating about celebrity sexuality. Many of the essay drafts I have saved on Substack were triggered initially by something that happened in the world; this one “”Johnny Are You Queer?” was inspired by Shawn Mendes having to address all the rumors and speculation about his sexuality, and how that made me feel. It was the second time a celebrity had to do this recently, the other being Kit Conner from Heartstopper. Both instances made me look at the subject in an entirely new (and more empathetic) light, which was frighteningly staggering; I thought how could I ever speculate about a celebrity’s sexuality, when I personally know what it feels like to have people speculate about you that way–and I was never a good-looking hot young celebrity, either, which would be exponentially worse. This led me to how “outing” originally started; it was a political act of protest from a community that was dying and no one cared, and a way to strike at closet cases who were actively harming the queer community (remember anti-gay Aaron Schock and his Downtown Abbey congressional office? He’s now an A-Gay living on the party circuit, and much happier than when he was a closeted anti-gay politician. I’d say that worked out pretty well for him in the long run, wouldn’t you?). Outing eventually got out of control and more of a tabloid monster, far from its original intent, but I’m also thinking about privacy rights now a lot more than I ever did when I was younger–which I am trying to explore in more detail in the essay. I am also writing one about organized Christianity, but it keeps getting longer with more examples because cosplay Christians are always going to cosplay with their full chests while denying Christ with every breath they take.

I generally don’t pay too much attention to celebrity drama, mainly because I don’t care that much about celebrities; as I’ve gotten older, I care less about entertainment news and the celebrity gossip machine. I remember the Blake Lively thing from last summer when that movie was released, and how she was getting a lot of press for being, well, a difficult bitch on set. I did think it was strange–I generally can’t avoid celebrity gossip, despite trying very hard because it’s fucking everywhere–that if she was that awful, why were all her co-stars and everyone else involved with the movie backing her? Now, I’ve thought Justin Baldoni was hot since his days on Jane the Virgin, and I even bought his book about being a male feminist; because I’ve really been thinking about masculinity and what it means to be a man, which is what the book is about. I’ve not read the book–I still might, just to see what it says; even if he’s a hypocrite, that doesn’t necessarily mean he doesn’t have a point about some things–but of course the story exploded everywhere again on Christmas Eve when Lively sued Baldoni, claiming he hired a PR team to destroy Lively’s reputation so her concerns about inappropriate behavior on set by Baldoni wouldn’t be taken seriously–and she has receipts. Celebrity fan culture in this country really is something, and it really is out of control; I don’t know why so many people think being a fan of an artist entitles them to know everything about that artist (see above paragraph about speculating about celebrity sexuality), not to mention the horrors of being a celebrity on social media. Yikes, indeed. All I will say is that Hollywood has always had fixers; the only difference is that now they are guns for hire rather than salaried studio employees. Jordan Harper’s Everybody Knows explores the horrible world of Hollywood PR and what they cover up, and how they spin damage away from their client to someone else, even if that someone else’s life or career is destroyed by the spin. (Read Jordan’s book, seriously.) There’s a decent show on Prime starring Anna Paquin in which she plays a spin-doctor-for-hire, Flacks.

It’s also why no one can ever completely trust celebrity news; it’s literally the prime example of fake news.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader. I may be back later, one never knows. If not, though, I will definitely be back in the morning tomorrow.

Yea, he’s handsome and has an exceptional build, but Zac Efron is more talented than he gets credit for.

Strange Way

Well, Christmas itself has passed and now we are in the slide to New Year’s and Twelfth Night…which means it’ll be Carnival season again soon. I don’t think I’m ready for Carnival this coming year, but is anyone, ever? I am back up before dawn to go into the office today; I don’t think we’re going to be very busy in the clinic today–I checked the schedule and we will definitely be busy on January 2–because we’re in that weird in-between-holidays time. I hope everyone’s Christmas was pleasant; mine was. I slept in yesterday and did nothing around the house other than some of the dishes. It also rained, and we drove out to Elmwood via Airline Highway, which was fun. Airline isn’t a highway I use very often (like the Earhardt), and it’s actually a great back way to Jefferson Parish and that part of the metropolitan area. I don’t know that part of town very well, so it’s always interesting to go out there. (Elmwood is out by the Huey P. Long bridge across the river.) We did see Babygirl (more on that later), and gorged on popcorn and soda. It was kind of nice just kicking back and not stressing about getting work done or cleaning the house (although I probably should stress myself out about the housework more often, or at least more regularly); I think from now on I am going to treat myself to a literal day off/holiday whenever one rolls around again. I’m also in that contemplative state that usually comes around between Christmas and New Year’s. What kind of year was it, did I have, and what do I want to accomplish in the coming year? That’s the thing about a year’s turning, you can’t help but get dragged into a contemplative reflective state whether you want to or not. I think it was a good year for me for the most part personally; it was mostly a recovery year for the horror that was 2023, to be honest. Ordinarily I would be thinking I am an utter failure for not accomplishing much of anything in a year–but I am being kinder to myself. The change in medications really kicked in this year (it began in December 2023), and there are still things I can get anxious about, but there’s not a physical reaction to anxiety and stress anymore and I really appreciate that more than anything else with the medication change; it was always the physical reaction (increased heart rate, nausea, sweating, trembling) which was the worst for me, which was why public speaking was always torture for me. (The reading the other night was a piece of cake, which was a lovely experience.)

I keep thinking today is Monday, which is more than a little annoying, honestly. My week is very screwed up. But it’s okay. I have to run errands after work tonight–grocery store and mail service–and I don’t have to come in tomorrow; I was going to cover for someone if they needed me to, but it turns out they don’t so I can work remotely.

I did not get to watch my two favorite Christmas movies this year (Auntie Mame and The Lion in Winter) because I would have had to pay to stream them; I do find it very interesting that films of a certain age aren’t streaming free anywhere. Why are old movies pay-to-play but many newer releases–even brand spanking new ones–are free to stream in numerous places? I guess I will never understand the economics of show business. We tried watching a gay horror movie last night (Ganymede, it’s terrible; we were an hour in and I wasn’t sure if the movie was pro-gay or anti-gay, and when you’re still not sure when there’s only a half an hour left? No need for us to watch that final half hour. The writing was bad, the acting overwrought, and I wasn’t really quite sure of the point of the film….so we gave up on it.

Babygirl was interesting, and made me quite uncomfortable more than a few times. Nicole Kidman is fantastic in it, but…this is one of those movies that I don’t think I can completely appreciate because I’m not a woman, if that makes any sense? Kidman plays an incredibly bright, driven and successful CEO of a major corporation…but is sexually dissatisfied in her marriage and her perfect appearing life. She literally has it all, but something is still missing in her life, and her desire to maintain her outward perfection while dealing with a weird sense of longing for something missing is portrayed quite compellingly. She feels drawn to an intern at the company, and he is drawn to her as well; that is never truly explored (what does he want?) but the movie is hers, and we see everything from her point of view. So, is she an untrustworthy narrator? We’re only seeing how she continues with her facade of perfection even in light of her torrid affair, that’s fulfilling some need in her–to be controlled, to be trained, and the sex and loss of control is exactly what she is needing, even though she is risking everything–career, marriage, family, wealth–here. Like I said, it was interesting; the story is the character study and evaluation of her life and her present. Is the ending happy? I’m not entirely sure, but in the final scene, and her delivery of the last line? That’s the character we’re never really shown, and that final scene is so brilliant that it changes the entire film from what you think you were watching.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Boxing Day, or day after Christmas if you’re not in a commonwealth of the Empire.

We’ve Got Tonight

Who needs tomorrow? Well, it’s Christmas tomorrow, Mr. Seger, so I’d say we could all use a little Christmas this year, couldn’t we?

So it’s Christmas Eve in the Lost Apartment, and Sparky and I are the only things stirring. Paul is sound asleep, and I am going to let him sleep as long as he wants. I am going to order our pizza around twelve, I think, and I am going to go to the gym in a little bit first, methinks. I am going to take today and tomorrow off from anything other than light chores (unless I get a wild hair) and just read and relax and watch things on television and cuddle with Sparky. I can’t think of a better way to spend this holiday, can you? Sparky seems to have that same secret superpower of inducing sleep in us by simply cuddling up and going to sleep on or near either of us that Scooter had. I took two short naps this past weekend, and I blame that entirely on having Sparky sleeping on me–I never take naps! When I got home from work, he’d been cuddling with Paul off and on all day, and he spent the evening going back and forth between us. We finished The Day of the Jackal yesterday night, which was really fun

I was correct about yesterday being an easy day at the office. We were on a skeleton crew, most of the managers and supervisors were out, and thus I was able to focus and get a lot of my work done. It was marvelous. I was able to leave early, and when I got home I even figured out what short story to write for this queer anthology I’ve been invited to participate in, and I’m working on this other one for another anthology I’ve agreed to write for. I am going to take some characters from another project and write a short story about them…I think it’ll work, and then I can just plug the short story into the longer manuscript, which seems rather genius to me. I mean, why not make your work work for you? I’m a firm believer in that–even if I always worry about recycling plots. This morning I am going to clean the kitchen, drink my coffee, and read for a bit. I am intending to have a very relaxing two days off. Maybe I’ll do some work, maybe I won’t. I did finish my Substack essay on the blatant and horrific racism in the original edition of The Hardy Boys adventure The Mark on the Door, too.

The public theater of the Luigi Mangione trial–which is going to be reported on breathlessly by a media completely out of touch with their audience and will probably last throughout 2025, serving as a distraction for the people who cannot with the news from Washington anymore; Romans had their circuses to entertain the populace and keep them from rising; we have our modern media. What’s even odder to me is the disconnect between Luigi’s followers and the vastly smaller amount of law-and-order proponents (mostly in the media, for the record) castigating and moralizing about “condoning murder.” I have never been a fan of scolds or people who primly climb into their saddle atop their moral high horse and lecture everyone else about their moral failings. For the record, I do not respond to being lectured or scolded or condescended to very well–especially by people I do not know on the Internet. I don’t owe you space, I don’t owe you a platform, and you do not know me well enough to talk to me like you’re my mother. She’s dead, for one thing, and I didn’t even let her talk to me like that. You think you matter more to me than my mother? Arrogant much? Maybe have all the seats before coming at me as a fucking straight white woman of a certain age? I blocked two people on Facebook yesterday–one a priggish morally superior straight white woman who came onto my page determined to make the stupid faggot aware of her moral superiority; the other a gay man I’ve never met who did the same. I do my usual test of moral superiority with other strangers that I always do: hmm, what do I think you were doing during the HIV/AIDS crisis when gay men were dying by the thousands? And is you’re so law-and-order, that means you were probably being horrible about ACT UP and all the other in-your-face activism that needed to be done back then, some of which broke laws, which means you folded your arms and scolded rather than actually doing anything while people are dying.

Kind of like you are defending health insurance companies. You cannot be morally superior if you are defending the death panels. To me, that means you’d be a German who turned away during the holocaust and pretended it wasn’t happening, even though you lived in a village near a death camp and could smell it.

Also, slavery was legal in this country until 1865. So you would have supported that? Jim Crow was also the law, Ms. Black-and-White-Binary, and so were the eradication of the natives of this land and the Japanese internment camps in the 1940s and I could go on and on and on. Your lack of nuance is very telling.

And for the record, I never said I condoned or condemned the murder; all I’ve ever said is that I understood the mentality behind it because I have been there myself. I don’t share my own horror stories about health insurance–because all these people do is fold their arms and wrinkle their brows (think Susan Collins) and scold anyway. It’s also amazing to me that people will barge into one of your posts when they do not know you, do not know your situation, do not know your history, to smugly inform you how morally superior they are to you. With that fucking profile picture, bitch? Right before Christmas? Literally, go fuck yourself with barbed wire, skanky bitch, and take the morally superior gay man with you. It’s very easy to judge people (I’m doing it right now) without knowing the full story, but I also shouldn’t have to explain why I feel the way I do in order for other people to consider my opinions valid–that’s dehumanizing, and if you came running up to me at a conference or in a public space and started screaming at me (which is basically what you are doing, dear Ms. Morality), I wouldn’t stand for it, and I will not stand for it on-fucking-line. 1

For me, this case fascinates me, and what is even more fascinating is how this is being reported. There’s definitely been a slant to the coverage of the case, and there has been since it first happened. It was very shocking–a CEO being mowed down like a dog in the street on his way to an investors’ meeting–and very daring, very well-planned. It was, very much, intended as a political assassination; a protest against our incredibly broken health insurance industry. The fact that it was the CEO of United Healthcare immediately raised my eyebrows; they aren’t my insurer, but I work in a clinic for the under or uninsured and believe me, I have never heard a single person with United Healthcare who actually liked their insurance carrier. It’s always horror stories, and believe me, I’ve witnessed some myself. United Healthcare is garbage, it’s expensive, it has high deductibles, and they refuse coverage over 30% of the time.2 Their clients have no recourse, either; none of us do when our health insurance companies deny coverage (a favorite of mine is the bait-and-switch; “we’ll cover all of this, no worries” only to find out later that “oh, no, you owe for this and this and this and this.” (That was my experience with my shoulder surgery last year.) I had a surgery that was, over all, about 95% completely covered by my insurance–but that 5% almost bankrupted me. So, miss me with your “sanctity of life” bullshit. Brian Thompson had no concerns about the sanctity of life of his clients, to the tune of billions of dollars of profit last year. I didn’t cry or feel bad when Reagan or Kissinger or Limbaugh died; I won’t feel bad when Anita Bryant or Maggie Gallagher or Donald Wildmon dies. The media also tried to paint Thompson as a “family man”–not that he was estranged from his wife and kids–and couldn’t find any on-line pictures of the family, which is kind of telling. Who doesn’t have at least one family picture on-line?

No one deserves to be murdered in cold blood, but our system is so corrupted and rotten to the core that most people feel helpless in the face of it–that’s the real story no one is reporting in this case, which is also very telling about the news media, how they report stories, and the narratives they try to shape–and feel like they need to step up for the good of everyone. (They were the ones who convicted the Menendez Brothers, after all.) Rather than think pieces and editorials about how “horrible it is that people are cheering for a murderer”–why isn’t anyone exploring or reporting or even considering why people are cheering for a murderer? Everyone was rooting for him before anyone knew what he looked like, and the fact that he turned out to be attractive? Made it a much harder sell for the media, so of course they ran with that–people only support him because he’s attractive, which again, is one-dimensional and offensive to the core. Ever since I walked away from legacy media last July, it’s so much easier to see the narratives and the spins they go for–both sides, really. MSNBC’s breathless reporting, along with their butt-buddy CNN, on the narrative from Fix and OANN and Trump that Biden was senile and dying ensured a Trump election, and I said it at the time and that’s why I walked away from it. The great irony that I agree with the right that it’s all “fake news” has not escaped me. They were right, but only half-right; they think Fox is honest, and they aren’t. The copaganda perp walk? How much money and how many resources did the NYPD waste on their “manhunt,” which accomplished nothing because he was caught by a tip called in? So, that was absolutely copaganda: see how seriously we are taking this, oligarchs? Keep approving our massive budgets which are a waste of money and time. Um, you didn’t fucking catch him, and it’s interesting that the NYPD will mobilize for a rich man’s murder and divert everything to catching the killer, while crimes go unsolved and uncared about on the daily in New York City.

We should be talking about about the health care insurance scandal in this country, and talking about how to fill loopholes and make insurers pay claims, rather than “you only support him because he’s hot.” I’m fucking sixty-three years old. Just because someone is hot doesn’t mean I either like them, support them, or want to fuck them (Zachary Levi? Mark Wahlberg? Nick Bosa?). So stop fucking condescending to me.

And don’t come on my social media scolding me. It won’t end well for you.

And on that note, I am going to get into the holiday spirit by going to my easy chair with Sparky and watching Auntie Mame, my favorite Christmas movie.

  1. The difference between me and so many people is I am exactly who I am on line. It’s not a persona. I don’t reveal everything because I only choose to share certain aspects of my life and who I am, and I don’t have to, either. I am not braver on line than I am in person; if anything, I tolerate more bullshit on line than I ever would in person. ↩︎
  2. How awful for me to empathize with all the people going bankrupt paying for health insurance coverage that doesn’t cover anything! How fucking dare me! That man’s life was sacred. ↩︎

When the Morning Comes

Hello, Monday. Another week of getting up early and going into the office. Yay. It was a good weekend of work and getting things done and relaxing. I’m not fully conscious yet–hopefully my coffee will start working its magic soon enough. The bed was again extremely comfortable this morning. It’s going to be a lovely day today–it’s in the sixties now, and will reach a high of seventy-two–and it’s my Admin day, which means I should be able to get caught up on my in-the-office work today. Yay! Now I just need to get caught up on everything else and I will be just fine.

And I have a bridge across the Mississippi River to sell you–I’m never just fine, you know.

Sparky did let me sleep in a little later before his breakfast hunger pushed him to annoy me enough to get up yesterday, and it was still early enough–and I was rested enough–to buckle down and get some things done. That felt good, and then I was able to read for a while on Winter Counts, which I am enjoying. Paul worked for most of the day, then came down so we could finish watching Black Doves and start watching The Diplomat, which is also excellent–it always trips me out that it’s Keri Russell, aka Felicity, in the lead–before we went to bed. It also finally hit Paul and me both yesterday how lucky he was Saturday night to have managed to not even notice the partial collapse of his building, which kind of shook us up a lot more once that reality sank in. He easily could have been killed, and his experience with the fire department and the police when he was leaving Saturday night isn’t exactly confidence building–they didn’t know it was an office building, not an apartment building, and they didn’t really check for people inside very intently–and it was yet another one of our many close calls; our alarmingly regular proximity to death and destruction but escaping with minimal problems.

Hard as it is to believe sometimes, we do live a rather charmed existence. Although–the next four nightmarish years are going to put that to the test, won’t they? Sigh. I am still living in denial that January 20th is going to happen. Louisiana continues to circle the drain under our horrific white supremacy governor, who is about to get rid of income tax but increase sales tax–who precisely is that going to benefit, Governor Asshole? New Orleans will get nothing but grief from this asshole’s administration, which is perfectly fine with Louisiana’s racist majority. They never really understand how vital New Orleans is to the economy of the entire state; and to the country overall. (That should have been the takeaway from Hurricane Katrina, but of course it wasn’t.) They just see New Orleans as a majority Black city, which therefore means it’s poor, crumbling, and crime-ridden; not safe for white people. It’s also a Catholic city of sin, which the Bible-thumpers really hate, even as they pass protections for the Catholic Church’s child-molesting priests while screaming about drag queen story hour. New Orleans really should be it’s own city-state; Senators Kennedy and Cassidy don’t give two shits about New Orleans; they only care about their greed and their bribes and their steady income from foreign enemies. Has either accomplished anything in Washington other than embarrassing their constituents who will just keep voting for them because they’re racists?

For the record, immigrants rebuilt New Orleans. Not Louisiana, not white people, not natives. In fact, New Orleans has always been an immigrant city (like every other major port city); hence the incredibly diverse mix of ethnicities here–from the Isleños to the Filipinos to the Greeks to the Italians and Irish and the French and the Spanish and the Americans–and the biggest influence on the city’s culture and heritage–Black people. Everything everyone loves about New Orleans comes from its Black people and their history, so yeah, racists, if not for the “crime1” here there would be nothing unique or special or beloved about this city. Funny how that works. And the state of Louisiana certainly has no issue with spending the city’s revenues.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have the best Monday you can, Constant Reader–I know I am going to try to!

  1. When the racists decry New Orleans’ “crime”, what they really are saying is “we left New Orleans when they desegregated the schools and everything else and Black people no longer had to sit in the back of the streetcars”–make no mistake about that. ↩︎

Bonaparte’s Retreat

Thursday and my last day in the office for the week. I was very tired when I got home from work yesterday–mid-week fatigue, most likely–but I slept super well and feel pretty good this morning. The temperature started dropping again last night–I checked and it was only 62 degrees inside last night–so I turned the heat on downstairs before heading to bed, and it’s nice and warm down here this morning. I don’t know how tired I am going to be later on, of course, but we’ve an easy clinical schedule today and I should be able to get caught up on all my Admin stuff today before I leave the office and come home. I am almost finished with a project, hopefully by Saturday it will be done and I can get back to my book work. No football for sure this weekend, so I have no excuse not to clean and write and go to the gym as we move into the New Orleans Holiday Season–which doesn’t end until after Carnival. Woo-hoo!

The last time I was visiting my father (or maybe the time before) he told me about a movie (it probably was the time before last, when I watched westerns with him) starring John Wayne that was set in Alabama and was about Bonapartists exiled from France who wound up settling in the western part of the state, which is how the small city (or town) of DEMOPOLIS was founded. (The movie was The Fighting Kentuckian.) Honestly, Alabama’s history is so rich and varied! I could write a million books set in Alabama–and that’s not even talking about places like Moundville, near Tuscaloosa. But there has to be some way I can tie Scotty and New Orleans into the Bama Bonapartists, you know? One of Napoleon’s nephews, Prince Achille Murat, lived at Magnolia Mound near Baton Rouge (I think the location is either on the LSU campus, or very close to it) for awhile in the early nineteenth century. Lots of Bonaparte connections down here, and after all, the Napoleon House is called that because after Waterloo, it was offered to Napoleon for his next exile–needless to say, the British weren’t having that. (There are Baltimore Bonapartes, too.) I came across a mention of the Murats of Magnolia Mound yesterday, and that made me remember about the movie and the Bama Bonapartists.

I also started reading White Too Long, and I am glad I have it. It’s essentially the story of how white supremacy and Christianity became linked through racism before the Civil War, and how those “southern” versions of particular Christian brands worked hand-in-hand with the Klan and other racists ever since. I think the Southern Baptists are the only ones left that didn’t merge back in with their Northern counterparts after the war, and the Southern Baptists have been responsible for a lot of bigotry and unconstitutional prejudiced laws and so forth ever since. The Southern Baptists were the queer community’s biggest enemy for decades, and have poisoned southern culture for generations. (They were also the very first organization to target Disney for being slightly more gay-friendly than anywhere else and announced the first boycott over it; it failed miserably.) It’s going to be an interesting read; I always find religion fascinating–especially how a benign message of caring for others and helping the poor and sick can get twisted so easily into a method of mind control for nefarious reasons. I still want to explore that more in a book, too, and I am going to finish that goddamned essay about my own personal experiences with religion and the Christian god.

Maybe try finishing the writing you’re already doing, Greg, before starting anything new–and yes, that absolutely includes doing research. Make notes of where to find said research and do not go ahead and start doing it–save it for when you’re ready to write it.

And if you never have the time to write it, then was there any need to waste any time researching it? Alas, I do have a curious mind, which can also be very one track at times.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I may be back later. One never knows.

I’m Not Through Loving You Yet

Sunday morning here in the Lost Apartment, and how are you doing , Constant Reader? I feel good this morning, actually; a good night’s sleep and a rest day always seem to have this effect on me. I guess the new reality for me is being worn out by the end of the work week and needing a brain-dead day of rest. I feel good this morning and my coffee is hitting the spot this morning. Yay! I hope this means a productive day around the house. I have work to do that I do need to get done, after all.

I was tired yesterday, both mentally and physically. I managed to get the errands run; made groceries at two different stores (!), dropped a box of books off at the library sale, and picked up my copy of Alter Ego by Alex Segura, which I am very excited about. I loved Secret Identity, and there’s no reason to think Alter Ego won’t be better; reviewers are loving it all over the country, and I’m probably going to move it up on the TBR list to the on-deck position behind my current read. So many good books! Which is, as always, a delightful problem to have. Whee! I am very excited about this. I am going to get back into reading fiction, now that I’ve finished The Demon of Unrest–my. new non-fiction read is probably not going to be as smoothly flowing a narrative (White Too Long). I have so many great fiction reads to get to! A plethora of riches to be sure. I am going to work today on some things, and I am going to work on the house some, too. It always seems to be a mess for some reason which is beyond me, but go figure, right?

We watched some of the Grand Prix of Figure Skating finals, which saw US skaters win gold medals in three disciplines–men’s, women’s, ice dance–which I don’t think has ever happened before? This bodes well for the World Championships in March, and it’s been awhile since anyone could say that, really.

I also wound up watching some football games idly, while I read short stories for a contest I am judging. I guess if you were pulling for either team, the games were exciting; Georgia beat Texas in overtime; Clemson needed a desperation field goal in the closing seconds to beat SMU; and even Penn State-Oregon was dramatic. Now on to the bowls and play-offs, which is going to seem very weird. I’m not really sure how I feel about this entirely new, semi-pro look college football is going for, and how it really has always been about greed. Which is a shame–but it always was a farce when it came to all that “amateur athlete” bullshit anyway. Players always got paid, and colleges always looked for ways to justify it or cover it up or exploit loopholes in the rules. It was also interesting seeing SMU in the ACC title game, too–SMU was the only school under the old rules to ever get the death penalty for too much cheating, and it killed the program for decades…so the NCAA became reluctant to use it again. (Ironically, the next college that would have–should have–gotten the death penalty was ALABAMA in the 90’s–and they weren’t ever going to do anything to Alabama that might kill that program.)

When I took the box of books to the library sale yesterday, they asked me if there were any mass-market paperbacks in the box because they aren’t taking those now. They’ve told me that before–and I’ve had to take books out of the boxes before. I still put some in there, just to see if they’ll say no to them, and if they don’t, it does get them out of the house. When did mass-market paperbacks become so anathema to American readers? I loved them when I was younger; they used to be as cheap as seventy-five cents when I was a kid, and I remember their prices gradually increasing until it was silly to not pay the dollar or so mor to get it in trade paperback, which were usually sturdier and more solid editions. Now it’s more along the lines of “the print isn’t big enough” for me, and I suppose ebooks have replaced the mass market editions. I always wanted to write something with my name on the spine in mass market, but never succeeded in getting there–and now they are being phased out completely. That’s a shame.

I was thinking about mass market paperbacks because I was moving books around in the laundry room and came across two editions that are two important books to my younger self; two that I’ve always wanted to revisit as companion pieces to each other: The Lords of Discipline by Pat Conroy, and Dress Gray by Lucien Truscott IV. The former is set at Carolina Military Institute in South Carolina (aka The Citadel), the latter at West Point. I read Dress Gray first, living in Kansas and picked it up at the grocery store, I think. It was a murder mystery set at the military academy, and the victim was a closeted gay cadet. I remember really loving the book, and I don’t remember why I picked up The Lords of Discipline, other than I know we’d already moved to California before I read it. I think I’d watched The Great Santini and wanted to read the book, but the Waldenbooks at the mall only had Lords in stock, so I got it instead, and became a huge Pat Conroy fan. I do want to revisit both books; I’ve been wanting to write a crime novel set at an Alabama military high school–that all-male environment I’ve always found so interesting–but that won’t happen for awhile, at least.

The manhunt for the man who killed the UnitedHealthcare CEO continues, and with every new bit of information released he becomes even more of a folk-hero. Some have started calling him the Adjuster, which is funny, but I saw someone call him Robin Hoody yesterday and that, I think, is my absolute favorite thus far. He’s almost taking on a Batman-like lore amongst the American people; few things this century have united the country as much as approval of this murder has. That says something about the mood of the country, and if I were a politician or a corporate executive whose business model is fucking over the working class, I’d be pretty fucking nervous right now. There’s a bit of a sense of 1789 Paris and 1917 St. Petersburg in the air, and now that corporations and the uber-rich have been screwing us all over for decades with no relief anywhere in sight–if anything, a sense they are going to make it worse for all of us–and no, it wouldn’t surprise me if revolts started up, or more murders of the exploitive class.

It doesn’t hurt if the uber-rich begin to understand that it’s actually not in their own best interest to fuck around with the working class, either.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later; stranger things have happened.