Category: LSU

I’m Telling You Now

Wednesday morning of Pay-the-Bills day, which is always a pleasant day, much as I loathe paying the bills I am just grateful that I can pay the bills; I’ll never not be grateful for that. I remember all too well the days when paying the bills was a nightmare, there wasn’t enough to cover everything and buy groceries…and there were late fees and so on and ugh, you never could ever just breathe easy and catch up. Once you get behind financially, it becomes exponentially harder to ever get caught up. One of the reasons I never address financial concerns in my work is because it’s too hauntingly familiar for me, and I don’t really like remembering those days very much. That’s not good–and not really true entirely; I have written about working class/the working poor in short stories, which is about as long as I can handle it. Of course, now that I’ve said that, I’m thinking I do need to write about someone poor or working class in a book sometime, so I can process the shame of my poverty-stricken past. I’ve also been thinking about this because I am writing an essay about my first job (McDonald’s; can’t imagine why I’ve been thinking about that lately, can you?), and that has also brought back the memories of being one of the working poor for so long, and all the money worries, and everything else that went along with it1. I’ve had some pretty awful jobs…but the only thing worse than having an awful job was looking for another awful job I would grow to hate.

Ugh, those low wage job years were the worst. It’s no wonder I had so little self-esteem. Scrounging in the couch for change to get a burger at McDonald’s. Going through the car looking for change. Nothing in the cupboards to eat, no money in my wallet and no money in the bank, but super hungry. Lots of eating macaroni and cheese in the blue box, any flavor of ramen, and buying store brand deodorants and shampoos and shaving cream. Not being able to afford an oil change for the car, or a new tire should one go flat. To this day, I have food anxiety, where I’m scared there won’t be anything in the house for us to eat and nothing in the cupboards and no money. This led to a small scale hoarding situation with me and food; in which I am always stocking up on dried stuff so there’s always something I can make to eat. I have canned baked beans and boxes and boxes of Lipton’s Double Noodle Soup and all sorts of things that I hoard…but I’ve managed to stop buying more of these things, and have cut back on buying more than we need. There’s still more than needs to be done in the kitchen cabinets and in the grocery stores, and I am still working on the food anxiety. There are also any number of Asian vinegars and wines and sauces for cooking in there that had probably gone bad over the years.

Sigh.

I slept well again last night, which feels great this morning. I have tomorrow off because I have appointments during the day, which is going to be weird–especially since Friday is my work-at-home day; my weekend is going to be all messed up and potentially my week next week, too. I have some errands to run tonight after work, too. I didn’t do much of anything once I was home last night–big plans often come to naught in the Lost Apartment on weekday nights–but today I am planning, again, to get some things done. I need to finish working on the Scotty Bible, which is the plan for this weekend. I also need to get started revising the first seven chapters and fixing them for the continuation of the book next week before I leave for Kentucky. Funny how I always have big plans for the evening in the morning that so rarely come to fruition, isn’t it? But by the time I negotiate traffic on the way home, I am usually a bit tired when I get home to begin with–and then when Sparky keeps insisting on needing a lap (like Scooter used to) I’ll sit down for a moment and then am down for the evening because he’s so deeply asleep and so cute–he sometimes purrs in his sleep–that I don’t want to disturb him. Last night he was back to normal completely and over his sulks; he pounced on me several times and wanted to play with some Big Kitten Energy after he was done napping. I have a busy morning at the office today, but it’s not that terrible, and of course I have to make two stops on the way home today, which isn’t a big deal but also might be an issue about being tired when I finally park and go inside.

I also decided that I am going to Kentucky the first week of November, so I don’t have to listen to horror on the way there or back. I think I will listen to Shadowland on the way home from up there, because it’s thirteen or so hours long and I have the ebook on my iPad so I can finish it when I get back to New Orleans. (I thought I had a paperback copy, but can’t seem to find it.) But since October and Halloween will be over by then, I am not bound by my “only horror reading in October” rule. I want to finish reading Gabino’s book this weekend, too. I think there are some good games on this weekend; LSU is playing Texas A&M at night to see who will be alone on top of the conference standings. The day games are not the greatest, but there’s Missouri at Alabama and Texas at Vanderbilt (!!!) and Oklahoma at Mississippi, so not anything terribly involving unless they turn out to be great games…and there have been a lot of those this season. I didn’t know what to expect from this season of new everything and big changes, but so far it’s been a lot of fun.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Pay-the-Bills Day, and I might be back later, one never can be sure!

  1. The only luxury item I never did without was books. I would always spend money on books because that was something just for me, and for me alone. I also really resented having jobs where I had to consider books as luxury items I technically should have done without. ↩︎

The Jolly Green Giant

Professional Development Monday blog, in which the office is closed while we do some continuing education and team activities. The place we are meeting this morning is actually pretty close to the house, maybe six blocks or so away? I also don’t have to be there until nine, which means I can leave the house around twenty till or so. I’m not entirely sure how the day is going to go or how taxing it might be, or what time I’ll be done and home for the day, either. I feel decent this morning; I could have gladly slept longer this morning but got up at the same time I usually do on Mondays. (I wasn’t sure what time we had to be there, so I got up so I could look it up and yes, was right about it starting at nine, but oh, well.) I need to reset my body clock after the weekend anyway.

Yesterday was a nice, relaxing day. I got the dishes and the kitchen cleaned (finally) and made the chili. I also spent some time with House of Blood and Rain, which is extraordinary, primarily because it’s a lot of things that I generally don’t enjoy, and avoid a lot when making my reading choices (more on that when I’ve finished reading it at last). We watched Grotesquerie, which had a rather odd episode and we weren’t sure if that was the season finale or not, but a search on-line this morning revealed there are three more, two coming next week and the finale on the day before Halloween. We also watched another episode of Only Murders in the Building, which was fun, and we also watched a lot of Skate America before watching our shows. I should have probably written more than I did this weekend, but it’s fine. I’ll do some tonight after work, and hopefully get a chance to read as well. I am most likely going to leave for Kentucky either this weekend or the one after; I haven’t really decided yet.

It’s been a bit of an off kind of spooky season for me this year. I am reading horror, as I had wanted to, but am a little disappointed at how slow my reading is going this year, but I should get some good reading done while I am at Dad’s; I am kind of leaning towards going the weekend after, to be honest; I kind of feel like I need to get through this week and another weekend before I head up north. I also keep getting confused because LSU usually plays Alabama the first weekend of November, and this year it’s a week later because of how the weeks and days fall; so I keep thinking the bye week is this weekend but it’s not. LSU plays A&M Saturday in a night game, then has the weekend off before playing Alabama. I also have a lot of doctor’s appointments, too, that I have to figure out. I have two this Thursday so I’ll need to take time off that day; I may try to get the one scheduled for the following week rescheduled to the same day, or move it further back. That’s why I need to get this figured out, either today or tomorrow. Heavy heaving sigh.

Now that I’m waking up I feel a lot better this morning. I’ll probably go ahead and shower once I finish this, and then I can read for the rest of the morning until it’s time to leave for the training/Development Day. So exciting, right? Sparky also continues to be a bit on the sullen side about his claws being trimmed back, but I did pick him up and put him on my shoulders and he was fine up there without needing them to dig into my skin to stay up there, so that was a win-win. (I also think going back to the vet’s gave him flashbacks of his pre-adoptive life, which he didn’t appreciate, either.) I think I’ll decide about my trip over the course of the day, and make my decision. This weekend seems awful soon to take the time off already, so I am definitely leaning toward the weekend of the 2nd of November, LSU’s bye week. I can watch games on that Saturday, get up and drive on Sunday, and can drive home on Friday. That just makes the most sense to me; it gives me this weekend to get my shit together for the trip and get the apartment into some semblance of order before I leave, and it’ll be easier–much easier–with an extra week to get it all together.

And now I am waking up enough to feel like oh yes I need to get my life back on track after this lazy weekend, and so, on that note, it’s time for me to head into the spice mines for the day and get my act together, so have a great day, Constant Reader, and I’ll see you later.

Like a Rolling Stone

Well, yesterday was a fun day for college football. LSU won at Arkansas 34-10, which was an enormous relief. While LSU has now won eight of the last nine against the Razorbacks, it’s a rivalry game (The Battle for the Golden Boot) and Arkansas always, somehow, manages to play LSU tough (there have been some real shockers and close calls over the years), and the game was pretty much in doubt until an amazing fumble recovery caused and recovered by the amazing Whit Weeks (who is quickly becoming one of my favorite LSU players of all time) allowed the Tigers to finally pull away and beat them. Alabama lost to Tennessee, and this is the first time since 2007 (the last time they had a new coach) they have multiple losses going into November. Georgia trounced Texas in Austin last night, too; if someone would have told me after the USC game this year that LSU would be tied for first in the SEC with Texas A&M at this point in the season and ranked in the Top Ten, I probably would have laughed pretty hard. And of course, next week LSU plays at Texas A&M, which will give the winner a pretty big boost to making it to the conference championship, as only one team will come out of the game undefeated in conference play (A&M and LSU’s only loss have come out of conference; there are no undefeated SEC teams left). We also watched some of Skate America yesterday, and will probably watch more today. I didn’t get as much done yesterday as I would have liked, but that’s simply the nature of the beast and it’s fine. I slept a little late this morning, too, but feel good. The kitchen is again a mess, and I am going to make white bean chicken chili today, which will make even more of a mess; sad that I have to clean it only to mess it up yet again…and Vanderbilt now has the same record as Alabama. When did we diverge off the main timeline again? And of course, South Carolina embarrassed Oklahoma (welcome to the SEC!). Even Mississippi State put a scare into A&M, too.

Seriously, what a crazy–and unpredictable and fun–season this has turned out to be for us fans.

I don’t have to leave the house today, either, which is another delightful occurrence. I made groceries yesterday, and after getting home from that expedition I chose to settle in for a day of football. Sparky was still calmed from his vet visit on Friday–Paul thinks he’s sulking because his nails were trimmed, but he hasn’t attacked me or tried to climb me since we got home. He also spends a lot more time cuddling and sleeping with me in the chair. He’s such a sweet little baby. We also have a lot of shows to get caught up on, too. I am definitely going to Kentucky next weekend, too, which will be very nice. I can drive up on Sunday and come back on Friday, which will be a very nice long visit and then I can get back home to watch the Alabama game (they haven’t been the same since they beat Georgia, which is weird). I can spend a lot of time sleeping and resting and relaxing and reading, which is always a lovely thing to have going on, and then I can start focusing on getting writing done and keeping up with the house. It’ll definitely be weird once football season is over, too. The play-offs are going to be strange, too; a gauntlet to determine the national champion. My suspicion is no one is going to make it through the season undefeated.

And then it’s Carnival again. Where oh where did this year go?

But today, I need to read and I need to write. Once I finish this, I’ll go read for a bit and then clean the kitchen, and start making the chicken chili, which is mostly for lunches this week. I also have to make Swedish meatballs, which I bought at Costco to see if it would be any good. That can also be lunches (and dinners) for the week around here. Payday is Wednesday, so I’ll be able to get groceries for Paul before I leave, so he can survive the week. It’ll also be kind of cool just reading horror while I am at Dad’s; Shadowland to listen to in the car and then finish reading once in Kentucky; Tananarive Due and Scott Carson and Nick Cutter to take with to read up there; and then it’ll be November when I drive home so I can go back to listening to something non-horror for the ride home. Possibly a Carol Goodman, or a Lisa Unger, perhaps. I really have a plethora of riches in my TBR stacks. I know I should read more broadly, and I should expand my horizons out of crime and horror–would it kill me to read science fiction or fantasy or romance or (gasp) literary fiction? Probably not, and I do have some really great books in all those categories in the stacks, too. I think I want to read something by Valerie Martin, Jami Attenburg, or Celeste Ng by the end of the year. (I also have some Ann Hood novels on hand; she’s fantastic.)

And on that note, none of this is getting done while I sit here and swill coffee and scroll unnecessarily online, will it? So perhaps it’s best to bring this to a close and head into the spice mines. I may be back later, but I wouldn’t hold my breath, Constant Reader, so have a lovely Sunday, okay?

I Know a Place

Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment and all is well. I slept incredibly last night. I woke up at seven and stayed in bed relaxing in a half-sleep for another hour or so, and finally got up when Sparky woke up and decided he was hungry. He was delayed this morning–and was very calm and cuddly and sleepy yesterday–because of the vaccines he got yesterday, as well as the shock to his system of leaving the apartment. He likes his carrier–he’ll go in there on his own, and Paul often tells him to go get in the crate when he’s having Big Kitten Energy, which he does–but he finally started meowing yesterday when we took him outside in the crate. He’s never meowed before, only chirped, which worried me a bit…but now he’s done it so I guess he only meows when he’s unhappy. His nails were trimmed (which he also didn’t like this time), but we brought him home to be a sleepy, cuddly sweet kitty for the rest of the night. We also went to Costco yesterday, which was nice and a little tiring. We watched Skate America last night (ladies and pairs short programs) and of course, today is a football all day kind of day. LSU plays at Arkansas tonight, and of course Alabama-Tennessee is this afternoon’s game. I am going to take books to the library sale this morning and go to the grocery store today before I come home to watch games for the rest of the day. There’s also some cleaning I can do around here this morning, too. Yippee!

I’m also going to read some more of Gabino’s book this morning; I read some while Sparky and Paul were with the vet yesterday and I just love the way he writes, in this interesting combination of Jim Thompson crossed with some John D. MacDonald but heavily flavored and filtered through his own remarkable talent in a unique voice that is entirely his own. It’s very rare to come across a writer with a voice and style so strikingly original, and the pacing is ethereal but also fast at the same time. I loved his last book, and I am absolutely loving this own. Next weekend I’ll be heading up to Kentucky to see Dad for about a week, so I can listen to another horror novel in the car (maybe Shadowland by Peter Straub, which I’ve not read before. I can take the paperback with me if the audio book is too long for a twelve hour drive; I actually just went to Audible and got Nick Cutter’s The Troop, and saw that I had a Riley Sager already downloaded, so that’s the trip up and back sorted. I also got the Straub), and I can take some horror with me to read. I’ll make shrimp tempura for dinner tonight, and am kind of torn about making chili or not tomorrow, but will probably go ahead and do so; I may even make it over night so tomorrow morning I can just get up and put it in the refrigerator. That’ll sort my lunches for the week, methinks.

I also managed to get the majority of the dishes done yesterday, no small feat I might add. That’ll teach me to be lazy when I get home from work every day, won’t it? It seemed endless, and I was also doing the bed linens at the same time as well as unpacking Costco and putting everything away; the living room is, even now, filled with empty boxes that need to go out this morning. I need to revise that short story and start working on another one for the Bouchercon anthology open call; I picked out the story just have to finish it now, which is also no easy chore. But today is an official day off from everything other than relaxation, reading and some cleaning around the house. I’ll try to reread the story I’ve selected; I just need to remember to channel my rage at developments in the neighborhood and on my street–this is one of the reasons I love being a writer, petty revenge on people who’ll never even know they inspired me to kill them in fiction–and retrieve that voice from deep inside my head. I think one of the problems I’ve had with some of the stories I’ve been writing lately is I’ve been too lazy to write about people the way they really are, instead of an idealized character who is logical and rational and then simply snaps. It’s that breakdown of going from law-abiding to murderous that I live to explore–it worked really well in “Neighborhood Alert”–but in some of the noirish stories I’ve been trying to write and sell since the pandemic they come across as too cheerful; bitterness and rage is what drives my stories, and the tone and voice need to reflect that.

Tone and voice are key to whether your story works or not.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later. GEAUX TIGERS!

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The Name Game

And here we are, with a truly strange schedule for work-at-home Friday, as I have some things to get done today outside of the house; Sparky needs some shots (and his Freddy Krueger like claws trimmed, thank you baby Jesus), and we are going to go to Costco at some point. I made a list last night (I’m sorry, but those sausage egg and cheese microwave breakfast sandwiches from Jimmy Dean are addicting), and hopefully it won’t exhaust me. One can hope, at any rate. I did manage to do some of the dishes and get started on that, but was a bit tired and Sparky needed some attention, one thing led to another, and next thing I knew Paul was home and we were getting caught up on Agatha All Along1 and watched another two episodes of American Horror Stories, which continues to be much better than we remembered. I would have sworn we stopped watching, but per Hulu, we’d watched all of the previous two seasons? I don’t know, I might have to revisit an episode or two of the previous seasons to trigger my memories. (It does bother me a little bit that I don’t remember things anymore; I seem to have forgotten a lot–but sixty three years of things to remember is apparently more than my storage banks inside my skull can handle.)

I did pick out a story yesterday for that other anthology I want to submit to–which means I need to get working on it this weekend, as well as other writing chores around the football games tomorrow. The Saints lost last night, so I don’t have to worry about watching them on Sunday, so that should be a good writing day for me. I’ll mostly be watching the Alabama-Tennessee game and the LSU-Arkansas game (but keeping an eye on the Georgia-Texas game, which is on at the same time), which makes my Saturday a little freer. I could watch the Auburn-Missouri game (the early game), but that’s a proper time for me to run errands and be home before the bigger game at 2:30. The living room really has gotten out of control and I need to get that under control this weekend as well. So, the plan for the weekend is to have a good writing weekend and a good “get things taken care of” goal is not a bad thing by any means. I think I am going to drive up to Kentucky next weekend for a week, see my grand-nephew (!!!) play football, that sort of thing and spend some time with Dad.

I also got caught up on The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, which is the only reality show I am really watching anymore (I’ll watch Beverly Hills when it comes back, but the others are getting a bit tired for me; I honestly think we’ve reached max exposure for them and they’ve peaked), and at some point I’ll probably have to get to work on writing out my perceptions and thoughts about this cast, and why I started enjoying and watching so late in its run (I have a problem with shows with criminals in the cast; so by the end of the first season we already knew Jen Shah was one, and I just can’t support that; just like Teresa Guidice’s conviction ended my watching New Jersey–which I was already hate-watching by then); I have only watched the previous season of SLC, and it was quite good. I do have some other thoughts about reality television and why I watch (I think the night time soap comparison that the horrible Camille Paglia made in an interview a while back was spot on; she can be right sometimes, even if she is awful in general) that will probably go into an essay at some point; I also want to do something on gay reality shows, which are generally awful (despite believing, from time to time, that a gay show would be amazing–RuPaul’s Drag Race has, after all, pretty much taken over the world and made her a billionaire–but they are always tragic disappointments)–anyone remember the The A-List? Real Friends of West Hollywood?

My coffee is quite marvelous this morning, I must say. I slept really well last night (which seems to be more of a daily occurrence anymore, which is wonderful), and I feel rested and ready to go today. Once I finish this I am going to work on the dishes and the kitchen, and unpack my backpack. My work at home today is mostly correcting paperwork and some on-line trainings, which is lovely and shouldn’t make me tired in the least before it’s time to punch the clock and then spend the rest of the evening reading or writing until it’s time to catch up on our shows–for some reason Grotesquerie wouldn’t stream last night, and there are more episodes of American Horror Stories to check out. I also want to go back and watch The Assassination of Gianni Versace, which I’ve never watched all the way through (Paul disliked it). It also looks like a beautiful day outside. It’s been colder this week than usual; it’s only 63 today and the sun is our and the sky is that lovely New Orleans blue with puffy white clouds lazily drifting across.

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

Those are some legs. Sheesh!
  1. Absolutely loving this show, and Joe Locke is fantastic, which pleases me to no end. ↩︎

Game of Love

Thursday morning and I forgot to set my alarm last night; oh my! Bad Gregalicious; bad Gregalicious! I did run my errands last night after I got off work, but by the time I got home I was more tired than I expected. I intended to do the dishes at the very least, if nothing else, and sure enough, I sat down in my chair to catch up on the news and let Sparky treat me like prey (my entire body is covered in scabs), but relaxed so deeply that when Paul came downstairs–he was home and I didn’t know it–to watch some television, I was all fuck it and blew everything off. We watched this week’s English Teacher, which isn’t as funny as it initially was? Paul agreed with me, so it’s not just me being hypercritical of a show with a gay male lead–which is always my fear. The representation is great, but I am not sure if I’m missing something, or if it is the show itself. Something for me to think about, I guess, in greater length once the season is over and we can reflect on it as a whole, rather than just as individual episodes. It’s a very fine line–you don’t want to idealize a marginalized character, but at the same time the series lead has to be likable and relatable; which is a problem because you run the risk of castrating him–and this character has a MUCH healthier sex-life than Will Truman ever had in all those many seasons of Will and Grace. we also watched an episode of American Horror Stories, which was creepy and disturbing, but at least it was interesting. The show reminds me of the great old anthology shows, like Tales from the Crypt and Night Gallery1, and yes, some episodes are better than others.

So tonight, obviously, I need to write some and clean up the house before my work-at-home day tomorrow. I know we’re planning on a Costco run, so I am going to need to do some serious work on the apartment to get ready for that. I also need to finish the desk chair, which is sitting, unassembled, in front of the fireplace–and there are any number of things in the living room that need to be gotten rid of. I have to take the boxes of books to the library sale Saturday; and I also need to start boxing up the books in the kitchen cupboards and moving them up to the attic, which also needs to be cleaned out. I need to work on the book this weekend, and maybe do some serious decision-making; I also need to work on polishing that short story and revising/finishing another by the end of the month. I feel a bit out of it this morning–the oversleeping didn’t help matters much by throwing off my daily rhythm, but I was wide awake when I got up finally, and I managed to not forget anything on my way out of the house. This should be a relatively easy and uneventful day at the office, and my supervisor will be back on Monday, thank you Jesus and pass the ammunition.

Wish me luck on all of that, please. I also need to make a to-do list for this weekend. There are some great football games on Saturday; LSU at Arkansas, Alabama at Tennessee, for starters. I’ll definitely need to run my Saturday morning errands early! I also need to read Gabino’s book; I hope I’m not giving the wrong impression–it’s nothing to do with the book, but more along the lines of being too tired to focus to read once I’ve done everything I’ve needed to get done every day. I am feeling better, getting more restful sleep, and I think I’ve adjusted to getting up early, little as I like to do so, but I always have that little rundown in the afternoon when I get overwhelmed with being tired…but it’s usually low blood sugar or something, because a snack will rev me back up again.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great Thursday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later. It’ll be a surprise!

  1. I remember watching Night Gallery as a child and loving it; I wasn’t able to catch reruns of The Twilight Zone until many years later; so to me, I always think Night Gallery when I think about Rod Serling, whose daughter I met and she was absolutely charming. ↩︎

Is It Wrong (For Loving You)

Well, that was a fun, if tiring, weekend..

I got to the hotel after dark Friday and felt very tired. Dad had gone to his alma mater’s football game with two of his teammates (I started to say old in the generic sense and then realized Dad IS old and so are they so best not to, or at least write a caveat so here we are). It was a peaceful, lovely drive and I was listening to my audiobook (Paul Tremblay’s Survivor Song and I HAVE THOUGHTS), and there wasn’t much traffic, if any. It was a beautiful drive, and I never cease marveling at how beautiful Mississippi and Alabama are. I had planned on stopping to eat at the Whataburger in Tuscaloosa, but for some reason the map app did not take me that way this time; it seems like I never come up here or leave the same way twice in a row. It always takes the same amount of time, though it’s been interesting seeing parts of both states I am not familiar with. I almost stopped at a Jack’s in some small town I passed through after leaving 20/591; but I thought there would be somewhere else before getting here.

NARRATOR VOICE: There was, in fact, nowhere else.

I always forget how little there is between Meridian and Tuscaloosa, or between Birmingham and Chattanooga. It’s best to eat when you get hungry, and get gas before you get down to a quarter tank else you could be fucked. I know I’ve been ravenous sometimes when I’ve had to wait till past Chattanooga to eat, and same for going up from Mobile to Montgomery. It’s weird to feel so anchored to Alabama, isn’t it? I don’t remember living here; I was two when we moved north. We came down to visit a lot, and I know for Mom and Dad (and my grandmother who also lived in Chicago) they always referred to these trips as “going home” and so I, too, have always thought of Alabama as home in a corner of my mind. I never felt like I belonged almost everywhere I lived once I became more aware of just how different I was from everyone else. I felt displaced, like my life was supposed to have happened in Alabama but it didn’t, so in addition to feeling different I felt almost like a transient everywhere. New Orleans is home now, was always meant to be my home, and I have never felt more like I belonged than I do there. I think my life would have been very different had I grown up here, maybe even harder or more difficult; I don’t know. New Orleans and Alabama are, oddly enough, the only places where I don’t feel like a tourist.

I’ve always written about Alabama, and I do sometimes think that somehow my Alabama stories are my best work, as far as the writing is concerned. The story I’m revising right now was the first work I turned into a college writing class (after the first course I took was such a horrific, unmitigated disaster that basically pulled the rug out from under me and derailed my life for years) that not only the professor was incredibly enthusiastic about, but the entire class was as well. This was the story that made me start believing in myself a bit more after the asshole professor derailed my life2 when I was seventeen. Anyway, I digress. Driving through the countryside after getting off the interstate up there always is weird to me in many ways, because it’s so different than I remember. When I was a kid, most houses in the county were old and made of wood, and there were still tin roofs around, although mostly on barns and out buildings on the farms. Now the houses are mostly brick, there are a lot of McMansions, but there are still a lot of blighted buildings rotting and falling to pieces where they stand. There are abandoned country stores and dead gas stations, the store built from cinder blocks and the rusting pumps still out on a crumbling concrete island. It’s also funny because I wrote Bury Me in Shadows from memory, having not been up there in over twenty years, and seeing the differences now…I guess I never had to worry overmuch about basing that book in a county based on where we’re from, and the differences are so striking no one would recognize it as the same.

Saturday I went with Dad to his high school reunion lunch, which was at a nice restaurant where we always eat every time I’m up there (they have the most amazing chicken fajitas), and that was nice. We headed back to the hotel after and spent the rest of the day watching college football games. The LSU game was amazing, but they sent me into despair a lot during the night. They won the game without ever having the lead! A bitterly disappointing loss for Mississippi (how many times have their dreams died in Tiger Stadium? It’s really no wonder why they hate us so much), but a very exciting game. The Tigers are now ranked in the top ten–which is great, but a big win does not a season make, if you know what I mean–and the rest of the schedule isn’t easy, either. Two road games in a row, then Alabama before one more road game at Florida before finishing out the season with two home games in a row. There has been a lot of great football games this season already, which has made it a lot more fun to watch than it has been in years. Saturday alone, there was the LSU game; Alabama-South Carolina (Alabama eked out a two point win); Tennessee beating Florida in overtime; Penn State-USC went to overtime; Oregon beat Ohio State by one point; and Vanderbilt kept up its winning ways by beating Kentucky. I ain’t going to lie, I am rooting for Vanderbilt to have a great season.

Yesterday I drove home, finished listening to Survivor Song, and then listened to the “My Dad Wrote a Porno”. I was very tired when I got home, very tired, so I spent the day in my chair getting caught up on the news from the weekend before we started getting caught up on our shows. I went to bed early and slept well–I was tired all weekend, but had slept well both nights, but not long enough. I did sleep a little later this morning (I took the day off) than I was expecting (but I also woke up at 5:30 the first time), and feel good. There’s still some residual trip hangover today, but I don’t mind that in the least. The apartment is a mess–I left it one when I left Friday afternoon, and so that needs to be handled today and I am also going to have to run some errands and get reoriented back into normality before heading back into the office tomorrow morning bright and early. I also have some things that I need to get done today–probably will be able to get all that done this afternoon–and then probably will settle into a relaxing evening. We started watching season four of Outer Banks last night, so we’ll watch some of that I am sure.

I didn’t have time to do much reading or writing this weekend, either, but I feel like today I can get to some of that. I do want to finish Gabino’s book this week, so I can move on to another as well.

And on that note, I’m heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later; one never knows.

  1. The two highways run together from Meridian to almost Georgia–somewhere in northeast Alabama at any rate; it really is always mostly a blur. ↩︎
  2. I also realized this weekend that horrible professor fucked up my life for a very long time, and I’ve never given him enough credit for unmooring me and setting me adrift. I’ve always hated him, but now I hate him even more, and what an abuse of power and control! He shouldn’t have been allowed near students under any circumstance. ↩︎

I Wouldn’t Want To Live If You Didn’t Love Me

Sunday morning, and all is well in the Lost Apartment.

I woke up early this morning and, remembering, thought it might have been a dream, but no, a quick glance at the Internet told me it really did happen–Alabama did lose to Vanderbilt yesterday, 40-35. Hell, Arkansas came back to upset Tennessee last night while we were were watching ‘salem’s Lot (more on that later). What in the world was going on in college football yesterday? Admittedly, insane days like yesterday (Washington even went to Michigan and won. What the holy hell is going on this year?) are what make college football so fun to watch and experience as a fan; and I think 2024 might just be one of those insane “reset” seasons where everything goes out the window. Vanderbilt beating Alabama1 just two weeks after losing to Georgia State–another Vandy embarrassment–and now the concept of hope has shown up for the hapless Commodores; if they can beat an Alabama team, on any given Saturday, the ‘dores could beat anyone. Absolutely wild. I was watching a different game–I don’t even remember which this morning–when I saw that the score was 13-7 in the second quarter, Vandy leading, and I thought, what the hell and switched over to that game, and both Paul and I watched in stunned bemusement, riveted until the clock ticked to zero and the Vandy fans rushed the field, tore down the goalposts, and carried them three miles to throw them into the Cumberland River. I can only imagine what it was like to be a Vandy fan watching all of this yesterday.2 I do pity the new Alabama coach; he’s got a hell of a week to get through before next weekend’s South Carolina game (LSU comes back from the bye week to play Mississippi next week at home; the Rebs trounced South Carolina yesterday), but still have to play Tennessee, LSU and Oklahoma. They can still make the play-offs if they run the table, but I am beginning to wonder about that. Missouri was also beaten badly by Texas A&M yesterday, so now Texas is the only unbeaten SEC team still standing and there’s no telling who might run the table, who is good and who isn’t, and so forth. It’s kind of exciting, actually. CHAOS.

I did sleep late yesterday, got up and ran all over town and even went out to Metairie for my eye appointment (which has to be rescheduled; it was an on-line booking error), but was thoroughly exhausted when I got home from everything. I immediately started cleaning while the A&M game was on–no need to watch that thrashing, so it was mostly background noise. I did manage to get all the dishes done, and launder the bed linens, and pick up around here. The Lost Apartment looks better this morning, but I also need to finish assembling my desk chair, do some more cleaning up around here (the floors, the floors!) and hopefully do some reading and writing today as well. The Saints play tomorrow night (Taylor Swift has been rumored to be attending; so I imagine all day tomorrow local networks will have someone stationed at the airport to see if her plane lands), and the weather has been lovely since that sopping wet mess of a Friday we had here. I am glad to be up early this morning–clearly I needed to sleep in yesterday, and I was still easily exhausted, so I know I am still not at 100% yet…patience, Gregalicious, patience. You’re older and it takes longer to bounce back than it used to, and you’ve never had a major surgery before; it hasn’t even been a full year yet since the surgery.

I do have one errand to run today, and I should get it done this morning.

So, we decided to watch ‘salem’s Lot instead of watching the Tennessee game (which we should have watched, apparently; I never tire of watching Tennessee lose), and going into it, I knew that most of the King fans amongst my horror writer/reader social media friends didn’t care for it. As I watched the movie–which is a fairly competent vampire horror movie–I immediately saw what the problem with this film adaptation was going to be, and even understood why even the cheesy two-part television version with David Soul failed. I have always thought of ‘salem’s Lot as “Peyton Place with vampires, and that strength of the novel–the townspeople themselves, their relationships with each other and all the long-simmering feuds and gossips and pettiness–was the primary strength of the novel, as is its pacing: it begins as a slow building burn, and the momentum just keeps building. Everyone knows the story is about vampires now; it’s even a bit of an homage, in its own way, to Dracula–there’s even a scene in the book where Matt Burke reminds Ben of Van Helsing–but when I first read the paperback from Signet back in the fall of 1976 in Kansas, I had no idea what it was about. I just knew it was scary, it was about evil in a small town, and the writer was the guy who wrote Carrie, which I had read in one sitting a year earlier. So, I was enjoying how the town is originally shown, a small town that’s like every other small town, that idyllic vision of America that the right keeps forcing on us all–small town America is the real America as this Norman Rockwell painting/Mayberry like life, and it’s anything but that. (Small town America is the real America, but not in the way they mean–small towns are composites of the society as a whole, with percentage wise just as much crime, adultery, incest and passive-aggression as the rest of the country, no matter how much better they believe they are than urban dwellers.) That slow build, as we settle into Jerusalem’s Lot as a town like any other, with likable people and unlikable people whose dirty secrets King allows us to see; in the first half of the book it’s almost like reading Peyton Place; Jerusalems Lot even has the Marsten House as Peyton Place had Samuel’s castle (which was also the name of Allison’s novel in the book). Something dark is going on in the town, and just getting started, which we get glimpses of from time to time–a dog killed and left on the cemetery fence spikes; the disappearance of Ralphie Glick and his brother’s strange sickness and death…but it isn’t until Danny Glick shows up at Mark Petrie’s window do we know that it’s actually vampires, and then the entire book flips and no longer lazily meanders along on its assigned path; it then becomes a thriller that moves with the speed of a locomotive.

This pacing is what most readers like me (and I suspect a lot of others) loved the most about the book; I always loved the town-stuff as much as the vampires, honestly, but that kind of pacing is impossible in a film or a two-part television movie–you can’t have the first half be meandering and slowly moving along the path of the story, folks who have no idea what’s happening in their town and still aren’t entirely sure as the depopulation moves faster and faster, because you risk losing your audience. This was the problem with the David Soul version–the pacing was the same throughout, which isn’t the way the story reads. In this film version they chose to abandon everything from the story that isn’t about vampires, and to just make a standard horror film about vampires. On that level, the movie works. It’s a standard vampire movie that moves very quickly, just as the second half of the book does, but by cutting out all the stuff that made us care about the characters, we aren’t as vested, and when they die, we don’t really feel it much or care–every death in the book was a fucking tragedy, and so the movie is actually kind of soulless. We aren’t given enough character development to care when characters die. I think the only true way to film ‘salem’s Lot successfully, it needs to be a six or eight episode series to be done truly properly. There was hardly anything about the Marsten House in the movie, and that’s a significant change from the book. It’s just there, and we have no idea what kind of research Ben is doing for his novel or why he even came back. The loss of all the supporting characters that really made the book so strong can be felt deeply in the film. It’s just a competent vampire movie, but it isn’t ‘salem’s Lot, but I did like the big scene at the drive-in movie theater.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I want to get a lot done today, and here’s hoping that shall come to pass.

  1. No one ever worries about losing to Vanderbilt; it’s usually seen as a bye for most teams because Vanderbilt has always been terrible in football; they’ve never won the conference in all the years of belonging, haven’t beaten Alabama since 1984, and are always cellar-dwellers in the SEC (one of my favorite things to remind people is that Senator Tatertown the moron lost to Vanderbilt as a football coach; now Kalen DeBoer will also have that distinction. What a wake-up call for Tuscaloosa, and how wild that it happened one week after Alabama beat Georgia, handing them their first regular season loss in 42 games. I mean, good for Vanderbilt, but whoa, what the hell, Bama? ↩︎
  2. Vanderbilt always has more visiting fans in their stadium than their own fans; at one point I was in the kitchen washing dishes and would hear the crowd cheer, so would come take a look–they were Alabama cheers, and they were louder than the smaller contingent of Vandy fans there. ↩︎

That’s the Way Love Goes

Sunday morning the Gregalicious slept late, and I feel good this morning. I stayed up late to watch Saturday Night Live return, and wasn’t terribly impressed. Our Internet also kept going in and out all day, which was annoying, especially during football games. The three games I primarily watched–Kentucky-Mississippi, Auburn-Oklahoma, and Georgia-Alabama, were all excellent games–and I also switched over to LSU-South Alabama periodically, but it was also a blow out so didn’t need to watch much. Still unsure how this season is going to shake out for everyone, which makes it interesting. I think there’s a lot more parity in the conference now, once you get past the clearly best teams this year (right now, I am going out on a limb and saying it’s Alabama and Texas, both teams LSU has to play in Baton Rouge this year) I think everyone is pretty equal for the most part, with the usual suspects (Mississippi State, Vanderbilt) in the basement. Kentucky almost beat Georgia last week and did beat Mississippi yesterday; Georgia almost beat Alabama, and that Auburn-Oklahoma game came down to the wire. The Saints play at noon today, which is cool, playing the Dirty Birds in Atlanta.

I did manage to get some things done during the games; I cleaned the downstairs bathroom thoroughly, I ran some errands in the morning (mail, Fresh Market, car wash) and then came home to start watching football. I also read, while in my chair, both We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson and The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin (more on both later), so hope to start the new Gabino Iglesias at some time today, most likely during the Saints game. Jackson and Levin are excellent writers whom I deeply admire, with completely different styles but evoking the same feelings when you read them. I also managed to get most of the dishes finished yesterday, with whatever I used yesterday as the only dirty dishes left in the sink–and that will take about two minutes, tops. I had thought about delaying my trip to make groceries until tomorrow, but now that I am up I think I’ll go ahead and do that this morning and get it out of the way.

I also want to work on the kitchen a bit today, and I also want to get the floors worked on again. Sparky tears up the rugs all the time when he’s running around like a demon to burn off some of his Big Energy, and the longer they are messed up the worse they get messed up. I also have some other posts I need to get done this morning before I leave to make groceries; and the longer I let them sit there unfinished, the more likely it is they’ll continue unfinished. I have a particularly spicy one about transphobia that I’d love to get done at some point so I can Substack it (and attract more of the bigots and Nazis there), and of course, there are any number of others unfinished as well. Heavy heaving sigh. I also have three book reviews/reports to write–I’ve now finished The Price by Armen Keteyian and John Talty; an arc of We Are Watching by Alison Gaylin, and Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper, and I need to get those done sooner rather than later as well. I also have some emails I need to answer as well as some to generate.

Sounds like a to-do list to me, doesn’t it? I also need to clean up the mess around my desk. But the key is not to get overwhelmed by the length of the to-do list, and just start marking things off. I also need to work on the Scotty Bible today, but I can also see that I am starting to think in the old bad anxiety/stress markers by overwhelming myself with so much to do already. Next weekend I have an eye appointment, so I can order new glasses, and my doctor’s appointment is coming up. I am probably going to meet Dad in Alabama weekend after next, and will probably go up to Kentucky later this month. How exciting!

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and hope everyone in North Carolina and Tennessee are okay.

Ruby Baby

And Saturday morning has rolled around again, and it’s a lovely morning here in the Lost Apartment. The LSU game tonight is being televised (SEC Network) so I can flip back and forth between LSU and the Georgia-Alabama game. There aren’t many games on today that I feel the need to watch or even follow, but I can have the games on while I do other things. Yesterday I ended up taking the day off–I didn’t know how long I’d be out with the errands so I just bit the bullet and took a personal day. It ended up being a lovely day; the weather was very spectacular; in the heat of the summer it’s easy to forget how gorgeous it is here the rest of the year. After the errands were done, I finished reading Jordan Harper’s superb Everybody Knows (more on that later), cleaned up the house some, and had a rather nice day at home with Sparky. I think for the weekend I am going to reread two rather short horror novels to get in the mood for Halloween Horror Month, and the first read of that month will be Gabino Iglesias’ House of Rain and Bone.

We started watching Grotesquerie last night, and it’s really superb. Niecy Nash-Betts is a fantastic actress with incredible range, and this part is perfect for her. The show is very creepy and reminiscent in some ways of the classic Seven, from the 1990’s with Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman (which is also my favorite Gwyneth Paltrow film), and we were sucked in again. I hope the show doesn’t wind up going off the rails, as so many of Murphy’s shows do, but I am looking forward to watching. I’m actually also still thinking about Monsters–isn’t the point of great art to unsettle you, make you see things from a different perspective, and perhaps even change your mind about something? I don’t know that I’m interested in learning any more about the case–not doing any deep dives into the Menendez case, but watching the show did give a fresh perspective on the case, and society and the culture have changed significantly since the murders and the trials.

I do have some errands to run today–I need to get the mail, drop books off at the library sale, wash the car, and make a grocery run. I ordered a new desk chair (my old one was torn to shreds by Skittle…and he’s been gone for fourteen years) because this old one is definitely ready to be retired and sent to the dumpster. I don’t think I am going to cook out this weekend–unless I decide to barbecue that pork tenderloin in the freezer; tenderloin always tastes better when it’s got a bit of burnt crust. Note to self: either set it out to defrost or get something else at the Fresh Market for dinner tomorrow. Of course, I could just get a pizza for tomorrow…decisions, decisions. I also want to make some more progress on the book today and the Scotty Bible; I need to mark pages in the last two Scotty books, and I am also trying to decide how this current one works out (I did solve problems I was having with two other works-in-progress, Muscles and Chlorine; reading good writers always gives me inspiration for my own; thanks, Jordan!). The Saints play the Dirty Birds tomorrow, and I’ll probably do a grocery run tomorrow, too. I also want to get caught on some blog posts that have been in drafts for a while, and I’ve not done a Substack in quite a while–you can’t build an audience (I blocked a right-winger yesterday who started following me; no fucking thanks, treasonous scum) without posting.

And there’s always, always, cleaning to do.

But…truth be told, I don’t feel anxious or stressed about anything. That’s actually kind of lovely, you know? I also want to watch Saturday Night Live tonight–at least the cold open, I can always stream it tomorrow–but not sure if I want to stay up that late. I stayed up later than I intended to last night, which was fine, but I managed to get up at eight anyway (thanks to Sparky) and I feel good today. I need some more coffee and some breakfast, and to get cleaned up, but I kind of want to get the kitchen and so forth under control before I run my errands before coming home to watch games and do things. I had the Eras tour on yesterday while I read and cleaned, and it really is very excellent; reminding me again of what a force of talented creativity Taylor Swift is–and the way those massive crowds react to her is really something to see, the joy on the faces of people actually there as they dance and sing along with her as she puts on a helluva show. (I still wish she’d done “Red,” but her choices from the Red album were pretty good ones, and the ten-minute version of “All Too Well” certainly belongs on the set list.) So, of course MAGA has targeted her–they want to kill all joy. Period. The Joy Killers is what we should be calling them.

And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close so I can get more coffee and have breakfast. Have a spectacular Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back for sure.

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