Category: LSU

Trouble in Paradise

Work at home Friday (gotta get down it’s Friday) and I slept a little later than I thought I would; Sparky didn’t even try to wake me up at the usual time (how does he know?) but there you have it. I feel good and rested this morning, and I have errands to run this morning before my work-at-home chores this afternoon. I have to take Paul to some appointments and since I’m already out, might as well run my own while I’m at it, right? I am going to get a new desk chair today; this one is incredibly old–I bought it when we moved back in here after Katrina from the carriage house–and Skittle is the one who ripped it to shreds, and he’s been gone since 2010, so yeah, I am overdue for a new one. It always sinks, too, so I sit too low at the computer.

I hope everyone still in Helene’s path are sheltering safely, and those over whom it has already passed are okay. She’s turned out to be quite the bitch. I worry about the flooding, which looks to be horrific. Although all this rain water and swollen flooding rivers will help deter this year’s salt intrusion up the river, which isn’t a bad thing.

I had a pretty decent day, but by the time I got home from work last night I was feeling a little brain fatigue. I worked a bit on the Scotty Bible last night (got Garden District Gothic entered, leaving only a few left to go, including Jackson Square Jazz), and went ahead and rewatched the first two episodes of Monsters, and within the context of the rest of the series, they aren’t as bad as I originally thought they were. I’m still not sure whose perspective that first episode was supposed to be from, but I think it’s the American public’s, and the second was the cops’. It is really interesting how much thinking I’ve done about this show, and there’s some interesting commentary, methinks, that I should be able to write and talk about. I want to start watching Grotesquerie tonight (love me some Niecy Nash-Betts) after Paul gets home, and I also want to get some cleaning done today. I have to launder the bed linens, and there’s still a sink filled with dishes to wash. Heavy sigh. But I was thinking last night I might put the film of the Eras tour on again while I am working around the house today; I do love me some Taylor Swift, and I was thinking I am not as familiar with her newer stuff as I am her older stuff (which I still love and has never gotten old to me), and I enjoyed the concert film, so why not watch it again?

The LSU game tomorrow night is being broadcast on the SEC Network, so I can watch it if I so desire, but it’s also on at the same time as Georgia-Alabama, which is what I will probably end up watching. The Saints game is at noon on Sunday, and we’re playing the hated Falcons, so I am going to have to plan my Sunday around that. I am not sure of the college football schedule for tomorrow, but I should try to do any remaining errands tomorrow morning before the games start. A quick glance over the schedule really doesn’t show anything I absolutely must watch, so I am hopeful I won’t go into a football coma and get sucked into watching games I don’t care about all day. Que sera, sera.

I am going to be taking Jordan Harper’s Everybody Knows with me on this morning’s Paul’s appointments tour of the city, and I also hope to finish reading it this weekend before diving into my October Horror reading, starting with a reread of We Have Always Lived in the Castle and Gabino Iglesias’ new book. I’d like to get through several horror novels this coming month, but I also am not sure how that would look. I am going to have to go up to Kentucky later in the month–LSU’s bye weekend is looking pretty good for that trip–and I should be able to get a lot of reading done while I am up there. Also, I can listen to books in the car. I am probably going to meet Dad in Alabama for the weekend weekend after next (the Mississippi game), and then go up to Kentucky a week or so later for a longer visit. It’ll be cold up there (of course), but it’s been a hot minute so I’ll probably drive up on a Saturday and back on Sunday.

And on that note, I am bringing this to a close so I can get cleaned up and do some other things this morning. Have a lovely Friday, and please please please stay safe if you’re in the path of Helene.

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The Grand Tour

Another Wednesday Pay-the-Bills day has rolled around, and I woke up relatively early this morning. I’d been wondering what time Sparky gets into the bed with me every morning, and now I know. I woke up at five thirty for some reason that remains a mystery to me, but I did, opened my eyes and looked at my alarm to see the time. While I was doing that Sparky materialized from wherever he sleeps at night, climbed up into the bed, and curled up into a cat puddle by my feet. He didn’t bother me at all until the alarm started going off–and even then, he mostly was just hitting me on the top of my head with a paw–no claws out this time. Of course, the first thing I did once I got downstairs and made coffee was check the hurricane path for Helene; she’s shifting even further east since yesterday, so maybe the panhandle won’t got clobbered as bad as it was looking yesterday. It looks now like the path is going into the bend of Florida’s Gulf side, and heading north through Georgia from there. Stay safe, everyone. It looks like it will hit tomorrow.

I got home later than usual last night, which was okay, I guess. Paul didn’t get home until late, either; so I wrote for a while, and did clean-up duty around the kitchen. It looks much better down here this morning, and maybe tonight I can do some more when I get home. I mostly cleaned and did dishes once I finished writing–Chapter 6 is actually kind of a bitch to write, but it’s coming along nicely–and went to bed shortly after Paul got home. I also slept extremely well last night; looks like we may be back to the “more rested the later in the week it gets” weirdness from before. (I’ve lost track of time again because everything has been so nuts and crazy–between the craziness of the most bizarre election cycle in US History, a hurricane, and the craziness of everything else, and yes, I am really tired of living through interesting times, to be honest, thank you for asking.) It does seem like the news is mostly the nonsensical latest madness to come from the other side, and just like that, we’re back to the sycophantic mainstream media letting the right determine the news coverage with their bizarre and weird antics. I’m glad I’ve blocked the primary offenders, and I will never forgive them for this election cycle news coverage, or go back to them as they continue to lose relevance. Good riddance to bad rubbish, is all I have to say.

I’m kind of excited about this weekend. There are great games to watch Saturday, climaxing with Georgia at Alabama, but LSU is playing South Alabama and it may not even be televised, which means I can get shit done around the house rather than settling into my chair waiting for the LSU game all day (it’s a night game in Tiger Stadium, natch). I think Saturday I’ll get my car washed and make a grocery run–it can wait till the weekend; I can make little stops to get things needed until Saturday morning. So I am hoping to get some good writing work done, as well as some good work organizing the apartment and cleaning things up and clearing things out. I’ve made some great progress this year–most of the boxes are down from on top of the cabinets, and now I need to start working on the attic, which might be a fun thing to start this weekend, one box at a time.

It’s nice being so awake and functional on a Wednesday morning, in all honesty. Yesterday I was definitely groggy when I got up, and I don’t think my brain was truly operational until around ten, most likely. I doubt that tomorrow morning I am going to wake up before the alarm, but stranger things have happened. I hope to be able to not only write this evening but also to read for a little while. I think I also want to watch the first episode of Monsters, now that I know every episode was from a different character’s perspective on the case, what happened, what happened before, and so on. That first episode was so jarringly different from the others, so I want to get another look at it with a new perspective. I think the first episode is actually not from a particular character’s POV, but rather from the general public’s; this is how the story was seen by most people. Yes, this show has really gotten into my head, and has made me reconsider some of the things I remembered and my point of view–which was primarily shaped by Dominick Dunne’s1 reporting…and Dunne himself is someone I’d like to revisit and think about. (When I originally read The Two Mrs. Grenvilles, I thought it was a fictional account of the Reynolds murder but it was the Woodward case–also a topic Truman Capote certainly talked about, viciously)

Interestingly enough, I had an experience this morning on social media that wasn’t a surprise, but I don’t understand why–I’ll never understand why, to be honest–people from my past think it’s okay, when I’ve not interacted with you at all in the last forty years, to suddenly pop up and pop off in a horribly nasty way about the right to choose…particularly coming from someone who never told girls he had herpes (and other STI’s), and loved to get girls so wasted that he could fuck them while they were barely conscious. Yes, I have no doubt that you’re a pathetic MAGA freak now–because if you don’t believe women are human beings, and you remember all the shit you pulled in college, the only way you can justify that shitty conduct is by blaming everyone else for your entitled male bullshit behavior…and I hope you don’t have any daughters.

That’s part of the reason I despise Justice Cavanaugh so much; watching and listening to his testimony was a one-way ticket back into the past of my college days, and I could easily picture the vast majority of my fraternity2 brothers being grilled by Senator Harris and having to resort to frustrated tears because boys will be boys goddamnit!!!!

Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be reexamining college with the same distance and understanding I have been trying to bring to the other dark times in my past any time soon.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Pay-the-Bills Day, Constant Reader, and I may be back later.

  1. He was definitely one of my favorite writers; sometimes his columns would be the only thing in Vanity Fair I read in that particular month. I also loved the novels. ↩︎
  2. A tale for another time, for sure. ↩︎

He Thinks I Still Care

Yesterday didn’t turn out the way I’d hoped, but low energy is sometimes completely unpredictable. I ran my errands yesterday–mail, prescriptions, groceries–and by the time I got home I was very tired, to the point I didn’t even finish putting the dry goods away from Costco on Friday (yes, there is a Costco-sized package of paper towels sitting on the living room floor, where it’s been since I tossed it over there on Friday). Instead, I collapsed into my easy chair and started watching games. First I watched Florida beat Mississippi State (how bad are the Bulldogs this season?), then the LSU-UCLA, the end of Vanderbilt-Missouri (probably the best game of the day) and at the end of it all got to watch Tennessee dominate Oklahoma for most of the 25-15 game before turning it off to go to bed as the sleepiness took over. LSU struggled with UCLA in the first half to a 17-17 half-time score, but went on to win it 34-17. The defense still looks iffy, the offense is starting to really gel, and they always seem to never really be into the game in the first half. There was a lot of sloppy play in the game, and I also do think LSU was the better team…but they just never seem game ready when the game actually starts. Both offense and defense looked better in the second half to me, but that is alarmingly reminiscent of the last two seasons….and historically, LSU always plays not as well in the first half. We’ll see how that goes in a few weeks when Mississippi comes to Baton Rouge. The Saints play at noon today, too–which is probably when I am going to make groceries today; it’s always best to do it in the ghost town New Orleans becomes during Saints games. I’ll have it on and probably won’t watch, as I still get too vested in Saints games.

My mind was too fatigued yesterday for me to process trying to read anything (although I did finally read that Advocate piece on jockstraps and their history, so I can possibly write that essay at some point; it also occurs to me this morning that maybe I should try outlining my essays, figuring out what I actually want to say rather than ad-libbing these essays that I post. I am very behind on them now–especially when it comes to writing up books I’ve read–and maybe, just maybe, outlining the points I want to make and the information that led to the coming up with those points and defending them might not be a bad idea. I do enjoy freeform writing–that’s what this blog actually is, isn’t it?–but it’s probably not the best for long form personal essays. I’m always learning, aren’t it?

My copy of Julia Dahl’s I Dream of Falling arrived yesterday, emphasizing further the need for me to get back to reading. I have way too many great books to read on deck, and not reading every day is a mistake. I should come home from work every day, put my stuff down, feed Sparky, change into more comfortable clothes, and read for an hour. There are good games on next weekend, but nothing to take me away from doing things (LSU plays South Alabama, and it will most likely not be televised), so next weekend should be a good time for me to get reading. The following weekend is a bye, so…the next two weekends should be more productive than the usual weekend in fall.

I did, however, do some thinking about the next chapter of the Scotty book, and I think I need to reread the previous, already written chapters. I also want to mark up Scotty books–I was incorrect, Garden District Gothic was never marked up–so that I can start transcribing and getting everything organized. So, I need to get this done with the last three and transcribe the mark-ups from Jackson Square Jazz, too, which I can do during the Saints game if I so choose. I want to do some cooking today, too–things for the week for lunch, healthy snacks (making a salad to eat from over the week; roasting Brussels sprouts, and making chicken salad)–and I need to get some filing done, at least out of my inbox, which has been a royal mess for quite some time. I also need to look at deadlines and so forth, and plan some short story writing time as well, and take some time today to at least start that next chapter. I also found some great inspirational pictures for a short story I am writing; one can never go wrong with bayou and swamp pictures, seriously. Maybe the LSU bye weekend I can drive out to the Manchac Swamp and LaPlace and take a look around so I have a better idea of how to write that story. It’s very lengthy already–focuses on desire for a gay college student for his straight best friend (does this still happen?)–but the ending has to not be rushed as it is now, and just as layered and complex as the opening of the story; right now the story feels like it’s front-loaded with a lot of set-up than BANG! It’s almost over instantly. So much work to get done…

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. The dishes aren’t going to do themselves and that food isn’t going to prepare itself and the filing won’t put itself away, either. I hope you have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and if I get some of those entries done, I’ll be back later. Otherwise, till tomorrow morning, adieu.

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Please Don’t Tell Me How The Story Ends

And now it’s Saturday, and I feel pretty good this morning. There’s lots to do, of course, before the LSU game at 2:30 today; dishes to put away and filing, a couple of errands to run, and of course, as always, cleaning. After work yesterday and running the errands–including Costco–I was very tired when I got home. I wasn’t very energetic yesterday as it was–I could tell the low energy from Thursday had carried over–and it was hard enough putting away the Costco purchases when we got back from that. We also started watching Agatha All Along (more on that later) before going to bed. I slept really well, which was nice, and now I am hoping to get some things done today. I want to finish entering the notes from the marked-up Scotty books into the Bible this weekend, and I also want to mark up the last two so I can get that part of it finished before going through it all and organizing it. I also want to write tomorrow before the Saints game. I also have to make groceries tomorrow morning, but I am going to try to get up fairly early (like today, Sparky got me up at seven) so I can get that done early so I can write some more tomorrow. I also want to do some reading this weekend. I’m really enjoying Jordan Harper’s Everybody Knows–he has a terrific writing style and authorial voice–and it would be great to finish reading it this weekend so I can move on to my reread of We Have Always Lived in the Castle to prep for Halloween Horror Month.

I also need to check the to-do list. I do want to wash the car this weekend, too–perhaps I can get that done this morning if I time everything correctly and I don’t laze around this morning–always a problem. I have any number of other entries I’d also like to get finished at some point–especially two book reviews of recent reads I enjoyed a lot–and I haven’t done a newsletter on Substack for two weeks now, so I am a bit overdue there, too. Heavy heaving sigh, and there’s some emails to answer as well. But…things will get done when they get done, and I don’t really berate myself (or feel like a loser) when I don’t get things done. There’s an essay (which would fit into the ‘my gay life’ essays) I want to get done about jockstraps, of all things; jockstraps are definitely a gay fetish object, they turned 150 years old a few weeks ago, and there’s a piece on them in The Advocate I want to read for background purposes. I cannot speak to why they are such objects of eroticization for so many gay men, although I suspect it has a lot to do with junior/senior high school locker rooms, gym classes, and sports. There’s also some other topics I want to address, but there’s only so much time in a day, isn’t there? Like I want to finish this, get another cup of coffee, and go sit in the living room and read for a while rather than doing anything else on the computer.

There’s also a system in the Gulf near the Yucatan that may organize into another tropical storm–same place where Francine got her act together–that I need to keep a wary eye on, and there are two more crossing the Atlantic, too. Heavy heaving sigh. But at least the heat has broken into something bearable–maybe not for people who don’t like warm weather, we’re so acclimated here that what we consider ‘bearable’ would be miserable for other people. Likewise, people from elsewhere are often excited when the weather gets back up to the fifties and sixties, which is literally winter down here.

I was also rather thrilled because they had one of my extravagances at Costco yesterday, Clearly Canadian flavored sparkling water. I generally get individual bottles at the Fresh Market for about three dollars not on sale, and yesterday they had a box of twelve for $11.99! You best bet that box went right into the cart, and I am now hoping they will always have it. I do miss my mozzarella salad, or those bacon wrapped chicken breasts stuffed with cheese that they never seem to have any more, but the Clearly Canadian was an absolute score–and I don’t mind having to get three of my least favorite flavor (cherry) to get nine bottles of flavors I like. I really miss the green apple, though–that was my favorite.

I also dipped into this new season of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, which I only began watching last season, and wow, is this show off the chain or what? This season the insanity begins in the very first episode, and it looks like this entire season is going to be insane. Hurray!

All right, I need another cup of coffee and something to eat so I can get this day underway. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I may or may not be back a little later; one never truly knows, does on?

Back Home Again

It is very lovely to be here at my desk this morning, with my coffee and Sparky begging for more food, knowing I don’t have to go into the office today. The work-at-home duties today are tedious, but hopefully they will make that time go back more quickly. I was very tired yesterday–I felt great in the morning, but as the day started to pass by I felt fatigue settling in and a feeling of not feeling terribly motivated, which is shameful, so when I got home last night I made myself transcribe the notes from three Scotty volumes into the Bible, and I only have maybe four or five left to go? Light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, quite frankly, and of course once it’s completed it’ll have to be updated. I have lots of errands to run later, after I finish my work-at-home duties, including a Costco run, which will probably wear me out a bit the way it always does.

We started watching Monsters, about the Menendez Brothers, and I’m not entirely sure we’ll continue to watch. I know the story fairly well, even if I may have forgotten a lot of it, because I followed the story as it happened. I also read all of Dominick Dunne’s columns in Vanity Fair back in the day–it was my favorite part of the issue, every month–so..it didn’t really engage me all that much. American Sports Story is kind of on deck (along with Agatha All Along), and there are some other things I’d like to watch dropping either soon, or have already, too. And of course it’s a football weekend; LSU-UCLA being the marquee game of the afternoon. There was also a lot of insane news breaking yesterday–not the least of which was that North Carolina jackass hate-monger’s exposure as a porn addict and a real insane freaky man. It’s exhausting. I’ve also taken the Bluesky/Threads methodology of “block at first sign of annoyance” to Facebook1. It’s much easier to block people than to indulge their idiocies and passive micro-aggressions. For the record, the people that think we shouldn’t allow politics to interfere with relationships? Tell me you’re a straight white cisgender person without saying the fucking words. Fuck you and all your descendants, now and forever, for all eternity. And I don’t owe anyone my friendship or affection, thank you very much.

I do have some plans for the weekend–around the games, of course (Saints at noon on Sunday)–I am going to have to make groceries again this weekend, and the apartment is a disaster area (but not as bad as usual on a Friday morning); I have dishes and filing to do, and of course there’s always laundry. I’m a little worn down this morning, but I’m hoping that will change once I’ve had more coffee and eaten something. The Internet is also out for some reason–this has been happening a lot ever since Francine; it’s annoying as fuck. I’m using my phone as a hotspot so far this morning and I’m really sick of Cox’ incredibly shitty service, which is getting less and less reliable. Every time I think maybe I should ditch the streaming and go back to regular cable, something like this reminds me why I’d really not have all eggs in Cox’ fucking basket.

Ah, remember the extolling virtues of the Internet and streaming back when it was first getting started, about how much better our lives would be now? As always, no one ever answered my questions of how reliable will it be? My personal favorite is everything you have to do with Cox pretty much requires an Internet connection…how can you reset your modem on-line when you can’t get on-line? All the instructions and so forth are on their website, and yes, sure, I can do it all on my phone but I shouldn’t have to. Bastards, really.

Wow, this is not only dull, but taking a really long time for me to get finished and posted. I must be running on accessory this morning, with my energy levels not quite reaching optimization. Man, I was tired when I got home last night–I stopped to get the mail and a few things at the grocery on the way home and didn’t even finish putting everything away, let alone finishing the dishes or doing anything else. Heavy sigh, but probably will get going once I have something to eat. I did eat jelly beans last night (yes, I succumbed to their allure while at the grocery last night) so maybe it’s a sugar crash. It’s possible, and i really do need to stop eating (and bingeing) jelly beans.

I did make a to-do list yesterday, and I need to make a Costco one today. I also need to get cleaned up and head into the spice mines, so I’ll bring this dullness to a close and get going with my work-at-home day. Till I return again, adieu.

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  1. Blockity blockity block block. If you annoy me once, you’ll probably do so more times and each offense is progressively worse than the last, always. Bitch, bye. ↩︎

Would You Lay With Me In a Field of Stone

Thursday, and my last day in the office for the week, which I’m not going to cheer about but I am starting to feel it. I haven’t had a full week of work in what seems like forever, between Labor Day and the hurricane and all. This week is the reset week, when you have to get re-oriented and back into the normal flow of life. I think I’m there; I wrote again this week, and I also worked on the Scotty Bible. I didn’t write anything last night, but I typed up the notes from three volumes. Left to go are Jackson Square Jazz, Vieux Carré Voodoo, and Garden District Gothic, and I also have to go through the last two and nock pages. Then I have to organize it, as well as summarize each book and list key plot points and characters. One of the lovely things about having a lengthy backlist is you can go back and mine the old books for references and even “hmmm, could this character be interesting to bring back at this point?” Yes, I am enjoying myself, and it’s great. I ran an errand after work last night–just the mail–but I also have to stop on the way home tonight at the grocery for a small run (I am resisting the urge to splurge on jelly beans, which are my literal favorite thing right now, and I am trying to break the habit but they’re so good!!!!) and will probably take the evening off from doing anything other than chores. Paul caught up the laundry yesterday, which was a very pleasant surprise, and I am currently soaking the dishes so I can finish washing them tonight. I would love to cruise into the weekend with all of these chores already taken care of so I can lose myself in college football while correcting the manuscript so far (as well as reading it all the way through to see how repetitious and tedious it must be).

I feel good and alert this morning, which is nice, and also think I slept through the night for the first time in a while–I’ve been waking up lately in the middle of the night, but am always able to get back to sleep–and I feel rested. No telling how long that will last, of course, but–last day in the office for the week, so as long as I make it through the day–and it will be a busy one, too. That’s fine; being busy always makes the day go by faster, which is nicer than having it drag all day. We’re still catching up on appointments that were canceled last week because of the hurricane, and looking ahead to next week…well, next week isn’t quite as busy once the “oops I need to do my STI swabs” worries from Southern Decadence experiences starts to fade. Halloween, of course, is just around the corner, so we’ll have one of these periods in the two weeks following it, as well. My people are like clockwork, really.

WE got caught up on English Teacher, Bad Monkey, and Only Murders in the Building last night. There are also a lot of other shows dropping soon that look great, too; I’m interested in American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez because that case always interested me. I’d even thought about basing a book on it, using LSU and the Saints rather than Florida and the Patriots, but I don’t know if it’s that compelling anymore, so seeing it through the eyes of a fictionalize television adaptation will help me make up my mind if it’s something I want to attempt in the future. I’d like to spend some time reading Jordan Harper’s Everyone Knows, which is wonderful, and I’d love to finish it this weekend and move on to my Halloween Horror Reading challenge for October. I want to reread an old horror favorite to prime the pump, maybe Stephen King or The Haunting of Hill House, which is overdue for a reread, or I could perhaps reread We Have Always Lived in the Castle, which I’ve not reread in a very long time. Yeah, maybe that’s what I’ll do.

There are some big college games this weekend, too. I want to wash the car this weekend and clean out the interior, which I think I might be able to do tomorrow afternoon when I finish my work-at-home duties and on the way home from picking up the mail. My messy workspace needs to be organized and cleaned this weekend, and maybe–just maybe–I’ll be able to take a box down out of the attic. I can clean all the copies of my own books out of the cabinets once there’s space for them to be stored in the attic, which will be a lovely way to free up space and reorganize the kitchen. I’d also like to get a few more chapters done before the end of the weekend and Monday rolls around again. I really do need to get into the habit of making to-do lists again…

And on that note, I am going to bring this to a close. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning, if not sooner; one never knows.

If You Love Me Let Me Know

I slept late this morning, but feel good now that I am awake. I did stay up later than I should have watching games last night, but I couldn’t turn off the Georgia-Kentucky game until the end. Georgia survived their closest non-Alabama game in quite a while, before prevailing 13-12 in a nail-biter in Lexington. My coffee tastes wonderful this morning, and I am slowly swimming up from the depths of Morpheus-induced slumber (strongly aided by Trazodone). When I first got up I debated maybe you don’t have to make groceries today but I really do need to. The Saints game starts at 1, so I’ll probably go during that to avoid traffic and other shoppers; New Orleans is a ghost town during games, and as long as I am home to catch the second half, that should do the trick. I did have a good day yesterday, despite all the games I watched; I was able to get more work done on the Scotty Bible (finding more discrepancies in the series), I did read some more of Everybody Knows, I got the dishes done finally, and did some cleaning around here, which is cool; it was nice coming downstairs and not seeing a pile of dirty dishes in the sink. I also worked some more on the books and straightened up the living room. Still need to do more cleaning, but am very pleased with the State of the Lost Apartment.

LSU played early yesterday, and it was a nail-biting, sloppy game with lots of penalties (and I feel like the officials kind of had their thumb on the scale a bit for LSU; some of the calls they made raised my eyebrows, and I was rooting for LSU. They did wind up winning, 36-33, but they look like they haven’t completely gelled as a team. Garrett Nussmeier can throw for sure, but there was also some incredibly stupid play-calling by the offensive coordinator (I was reminded of the Les Miles era; I wasn’t the only one because a headline on the Times-Picayune reads “Les Miles would have enjoyed LSU’s sloppy 36-33 win”). It was also weird because we actually don’t know how good South Carolina really is; they trounced Kentucky last week, and last night Kentucky almost knocked off Georgia, only to lose to LSU this week. After the LSU game ended, I watched Florida’s season start circling the drain again as they got trounced at home by Texas A&M, who lost to Notre Dame last week; you see how this is going? This is, I think, going to be an extremely strange season, and right now I am picking Texas to win the SEC.

Tulane also lost to Oklahoma yesterday, but they gave the Sooners what-for before going down to defeat.

I did run out yesterday to the Fresh Market to pick up a few things–fresh ground hamburger for grilling, and a meal kit of shrimp scampi for tonight–and so heading over to the West Bank today (which I was on the fence about when I got up) doesn’t seem as daunting now that I am waking up. Paul might have his trainer today, and thus will be gone for a bit anyway; perfect timing, and I can also stop for lunch at either Five Guys or Sonic; this decision is a tough one, frankly, but will probably go for Sonic. (These are the important decisions I face down every day, you know.)

I also took notes on the next chapter of the book, which I hope to tackle at some point this week. It’s Chapter Five, where I always have trouble in a first draft (come to think of it, Never Kiss a Stranger also stalled out at Chapter Five), but the good thing to come out of Hurricane Francine is now I remember how it goes and how it feels and how it sounds to ride out a hurricane. I know this is where Venus and Blaine turn this into an actual crime story–the dead body in front of their place the boys find in Chapter One–and it’s going to be really fun figuring out the rest of this book, I think. But I think I have an excellent grasp of what this chapter needs to be to move the story forward, plus it’s more of an intellectual puzzle of sorts because they can’t really go out and do any investigating because of the storm conditions. It’s so nice to feel excited about writing again, Constant Reader, you have no idea.

The story of Springfield, Ohio, and its perfectly ordinary Haitian immigrant population, working hard and building a better life for themselves and their families in this country with the opportunities here, despite the deeply imbedded racism and xenophobia they’ve surely encountered since being recruited to immigrate to Springfield to keep the town from dying. Now that the right’s candidates have decided to target that small town with blood libel and slander and racism, the town’s public schools, city hall, and hospitals have all been receiving bomb threats, because the Right has embraced stochastic terrorism for years now. There’s nothing American or patriotic about any of this, and the Right thinks it’s funny and laugh about it, particularly their Queen of Sewage, Chaya Raichik, who should be in a women’s penitentiary trying to explain how she’s not a racist to the brown women in there. Imagine being a “brand” and making money on being a stochastic terrorist, and celebrated for it. I’d actually like to see an IRS audit of Moms for Liberty and their bitch goddess to see where their money is coming from. We really don’t utilize the IRS nearly enough when it comes to lawbreaking cults and psychopaths when they are white, which is completely despicable, but part of those horrific baked-in values of racism in American society, carefully developed and nurtured over four hundred years. When I first saw they were targeting Haitian immigrants, I had two thoughts: 1. I was surprised the old blood libel about Haitians and HIV/AIDS weren’t dug up (it took just another day and 2. since it was pets, I was a little surprised it wasn’t the blood libel of Haitian satanism/voodoo’, i.e “they’re stealing our pets for ritual sacrifice!” Thanks, by the way, to perennial presidential candidate and new age lunatic Marianne Williamson, for making that connection for everyone. She’s fucking trash, and someone else Oprah owes us all an apology for platforming. She actually has quite a track record for charlatans and frauds, doesn’t she?

And on that note I am going to get another cup of coffee and perhaps some coffee cake for breakfast before I head into the spice mines. Have a great day, Constant Reader, and I may be back later, one never can be sure.

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Rub It In

Saturday morning of this disrupted and off-track week. I went to the office yesterday and did walk-in testing, primarily because I’d already been home for two days getting paid and didn’t really think it was right to then work-at-home on Friday, too. But it has thrown my routine off, just as the hurricane did, because now my days are all messed up. LSU plays at eleven this morning, which means I should make a grocery run this morning before the game starts, but I also slept late and am not really sure if I have the energy to do so before the game starts. There are also good games on for the majority of the day–which will make that trip even trickier to do later, so i really do need to get to the Fresh Market before hand. Sigh. I didn’t do much when I got home from work, either, as I was very tired; mostly watched the news and cuddled with Sparky until Paul got home–late–and then I went to bed shortly after.

I also have to go to make groceries tomorrow, too. Sigh. The run to the Fresh Market is to get some fresh meat and shrimp for the weekend. I want to barbecue burgers today–a college football Saturday thing–and shrimp scampi or maybe even shrimp creole for tomorrow night. But I need to clean this goddamned godforsaken kitchen first. I have a sink full of dishes that I’ve just let sit there all week (we were supposed to use water sparingly after the storm, because the sewers were full of water already) and of course, now it’s going to be a major undertaking. I let the entire house slide this week, which is shameful. I’m going to work more on the Scotty Bible today while I watch games, try to read some more of Everybody Knows (which is fantastic), and try to pick up around here. Next week isn’t going to be an easy one, as my supervisor will be out at a conference (which basically means everyone will come to me with questions and concerns) so it will be a lot more hectic. Sigh. I have so much to do! I guess today I’ll go ahead and make a to-do list today before I start working on the house.

Ah, there’s the coffee kicking in at last! I was getting worried as I was feeling a bit groggy still, and thought ugh is this going to be a tired day? I fell asleep in the afternoon one day this past week, during the storm days, which was wild, but hurricane fatigue is a thing. Yeah, running over to Fresh Market after finishing this and getting a bit cleaned up before the game is definitely do-able. I want to seriously clean off my desk and organize this area a bit–the great thing is I can play whatever game I’m watching on the computer while I am in the kitchen, which is very cool (something I always forget–that my desktop AND laptop are also television screens).

I also want to get some progress made on the book this weekend. I’m sure the Saints are playing tomorrow, plus the grocery trip (I may go to the West Bank, now that they’re finished installing the lights on the bridge, and may even treat myself to Sonic while I am over there), so the window for writing tomorrow could be a little tight. It’s always hard to write on the weekends during football season! But I’ll get it done. It really is impossible to be able to focus completely to write when there’s a storm on its way, or even immediately after. But the positive is the book itself is set during a storm, and now I have fresh memories of time-lines, what it’s like outside, and the tension. No matter how much you try to relax, you’re always on edge because you never can be certain the roof isn’t going to come off or there won’t be a tornado or the wind won’t pick up a tree and deposit it on your house–sometimes hurricane winds can rip the facade off a house, too. I also need to do some brainstorming on the rest of the book. I’ve got some ideas about how to write the rest, but the primary trick is going to be not using anything that can slow the narrative down–like over-explaining (what I call “filler”), because it really does need to keep moving.

And see? After a tropical weather break, I am getting right back into it again. Huzzah!

And on that note, I am going to get cleaned up and head into the spice mines and get that grocery run out of the way…and perhaps start on cleaning up this kitchen, too. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader; I doubt I’ll be back today but you never know. GEAUX TIGERS!

I Can Help

Friday after the storm and I am heading into the office in a bit to see what is the situation with our testing supplies, which have to be in controlled temperatures. The exciting day job responsibilities of a Gregalicious. These interrupted weeks are always a bit difficult to re-acclimate back from, especially these sudden and unexpected ones; the ones you plan for are disruptive enough. But I have to go in on a Friday after being home for two days, to then be home again for another two days, and then go back to normal, whatever that may be now. My mind and body clock are sufficiently scrambled now, and it may not be easy getting back into the old routine again–which may not be a bad thing, if I can perhaps establish a new one out of this chaos?

Always a plus!

We finished watching The Perfect Couple, which really didn’t stick the landing, but otherwise was a lot of fun to watch. I imagine the book was probably better. Yesterday was an odd day; it’s weird to have a hurricane day (let alone two in a row) and not have to worry about working at home and so forth; it was like having a weekend in the middle of the week and now I have a day to go into the office when I usually don’t before the weekend, which is very odd. I also started reading Jordan Harper’s Everybody Knows, which is phenomenal, and I also collected all the marked information from Who Dat Whodunnit for the Scotty Bible. The next book up is Bourbon Street Blues, and what’s interesting is catching the continuity errors I’ve made over the years, which points out the need for the Scotty Bible, which I should have done after the first three when I went back to write the fourth.

The Internet is out this morning–it survived the storm, but a day later goes down? Excellent service, Cox. Fortunately I have an iPhone hotspot so I can check my emails and everything before I head into the office. The email communiqué yesterday afternoon about the office being open this morning mentioned that we’d be using generator power if Entergy was still down; which means limited access to the Internet and so forth. It could make for an interesting day, but I kind of think Entergy might have the power back on across the city by now? There are, per the outage map, still some parts of the city that are without power, but most people have it. It does look like the office is still down, but there was so little red on the outage map I doubt it will be out for much longer.

The aftermath of a hurricane–no matter the size, whether’s it’s a tropical depression or a Category –always feels like awakening from a disorienting dream. The release of tension–because no matter how calm you feel, you’re super tense waiting for the unknown–and once the storm is past, you just kind of let all the internal pressure out and feel exhausted. I didn’t work on cleaning up the house much; I have a sink full of dishes to do and bed linens to launder today, and I should probably stop on the way home to get something to make for dinner, as there is very little of anything in the house. I got a pizza for us last night (I was starving), and have to do some writing tonight when I get home. I think I am going to take some of the Bible information and put it into the first four chapters, and I may even go ahead and do second drafts while I am in there. There’s a lot of “riding the storm out” bits and pieces I can add in–the tension, the worry, the hurry-up-and-wait of it all; how the day before is simply stunningly beautiful, the howling of the wind and the steady downpour of rain. Figuring this book out isn’t going to be easy, but the time frame I was originally looking at does work–so the entire book will take place over about thirty-six hours, from start to finish, with some flashbacks to the past. I am still excited about this book, and compiling the Bible, to be honest. I don’t know why it took so long; the post-it notes have been in volumes of the backlist since before Royal Street Reveillon was published–the last two books don’t have post-its in them.

The weekend is going to be fun, methinks. A plethora of college football games to watch; LSU plays at eleven, so that will free up the day later. I am going to try to do some writing tonight when I get home from work, and I definitely am going to read more of Everybody Knows. I have errands to run and some things to get done this weekend, and I definitely need to clean the damned house. Sigh. Stop being lazy, Greg!

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I may be back later; one can never be entirely certain!

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Eve of Destruction

Good morning to you, Constant Reader. Here we are on Saturday, after another rainy day and work-at-home duties. It is still raining this morning. I can see why it starts to get on people after a few days, but not me. I love it. I am up super early this morning again–I got up at six thirty (!!)–for the second day in a row that I didn’t have to, but I find I like getting up early when I don’t have to so I can get more stuff done, you know? It was great getting all my work stuff done early yesterday so I could run my errands and work on the house and so on, which I did go ahead and do. My eye appointment isn’t today, but I rescheduled it anyway for the first weekend in October.

I did start working on the Scotty Bible yesterday, which was very cool. I feel like progress is being made, you know? Paul was at the office for meetings and to finish a grant, so Sparky and I had a lovely time hanging out. I also started pulling together a cast list for the new book, and started working on the outline. I also figured out how to do the prologue, which I usually do when the book is done, and I have a great opening line to parody. As I was moving stuff around on my desk while cleaning, I pulled out my copy of Collected Stories of William Faulkner, and of course there was a place-holder marking the page where “A Rose for Emily” begins. I know, it’s not very original, but “A Rose for Emily” is one of my favorite short stories of all time, but its brilliant macabre twists and turns are absolute genius, and of course, Faulkner was a genius. Hard to navigate sometimes, but a genius none-the-less. I may reread it to dissect it again, but every small Southern town had a Miss Emily, back in the day. “I have no taxes in Jefferson” is such a great line.

I did read some non-fiction yesterday. I received a book called The Price: What It Takes to Win in College Football’s Era of Chaos by Armen Keteyian and John Talty and it’s interesting. It covers the 2023 football season, with all the conference realignments, NIL deals and money, and so on. The nice thing about it is every chapter is about a different coach or team or aspect of the “chaos”, so it doesn’t have to be read in order. I read the chapters about Nick Saban and Jim Harbaugh yesterday, as well as the one about the collapse of Jimbo Fisher’s career at Texas A&M. I’m keeping an open mind–my mantra being “change isn’t bad’–about it, but I’m watching college football with a wary eye this year; all the changes and this multi team play-off (the irony that the team that’s royal screwing last year emphasized the need for this has now lost two games already this early doesn’t escape me. They could of course run the table–look at what happened to Clemson already, too–the two powerhouses of the ACC.) But it’s a long season, and everyone counted Alabama out early last year after they lost to Texas, and they did just that–ran the table and went to the play-offs.

When I was running my errands yesterday, I had my first “understand the assignment” experience with a total stranger! I had stopped to get the mail, and of course, it was raining. So I dashed through the rain into the postal service, grabbed my mail, and ran back across the street to where I was parked. As I got into the car, I noticed Harris/Walz signs all over the iron gate of the house next door. I smiled, and decided to take a picture of it once I was safely in my car. I rolled down the window, but the gate started to open and a car pulled in. The woman got out, saw me taking a picture of her gate, and I yelled “love your signs” and gave her a thumbs-up (she also had them on her car) and we yelled it together at the same time: “I understand the assignment!” and we both laughed. As I drove off, I noticed the entire block had Harris/Walz signs, and I started noticing them on cars around the city yesterday, too. Usually all I’ve seen has been Trump decals and stickers all over those “I have a small penis so I need a massive truck” vehicles, but I also know those people aren’t from New Orleans. I mean it when I say I live in a blue dot in a red sea–New Orleans doesn’t play with that sort of thing. New Orleans is so fucking blue it’s almost black, kind of like the dark blue velvet of a cloudless midnight sky on the full moon. Think I’m kidding? Did Hillary get 81% and Biden 83% of the vote in your blue city? WHen we had more population, combining with the other blue dots in the state, New Orleans could swing a statewide election to the Democratic Party; it’s how Mary Landrieu was elected to the Senate twice here,…until she committed the colossal sin of agreeing with and backing our first Black president. The racists replaced her with Bill Cassidy1, that mental giant, because New Orleans didn’t have the electoral power in the state it enjoyed before Katrina–and don’t tell me that part of the response to Katrina wasn’t what it was because Karl Rove wanted to break the Democratic Party in Louisiana, and what better way than to traumatize and break up a solid block of voters? It’s never really recovered, either. That’s why we have those morons Cassidy and Kennedy in the Senate embarrassing us on a daily basis, and why we have a Project 2025 governor now.

The city will turn out for the Vice-President. The rest of the state may be as red as the old USSR flag2, but New Orleans thumbs its nose at their politics of division, hate, and Christian white supremacy. It’s why the rest of the state hates us, that plus we’re a majority Black city. It’s why the racists in the rest of the state are always whining about the crime in New Orleans and how ‘scary’ and ‘dangerous’ the city is; dog whistles, of course. I am white and I have lived here for almost thirty years, and yes, while we have been the victims of a violent crime committed by homophobes from outside of New Orleans, neither one of us ever feels fear here.

And on that note, I am going to get some more coffee and I am going to read for a little while before I get cleaned up and going on my day. Hope you have a great Saturday, Constant Reader; I’ll have the television on in the background during games today. I don’t think LSU’s game tonight is even televised? No big deal, really.

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  1. Thanks again, Louisiana racists. ↩︎
  2. A very deliberate choice for that image, since it appears that Russia has owned the Right in this country for quite some time now. ↩︎