Category: New Orleans

Bandala

And top o’ the morning to you, Constant Reader, on this last day of work before I start my little stay-at-home vacation!

Hurray for Vacation Eve! It sure does seem like I’ve had a lot of time off from the office this month, doesn’t it? Probably because there has been so much of it lately; I don’t think I am working a full week again until after Labor Day–and haven’t the last three weeks, either, including this one–so yeah, that’s actually quite a bit. I really didn’t want to get up this morning, either–yet here I am, swilling coffee and watching it getting light outside and hoping that it’s an easy day to get through.

I got more work done on the revisions; the manuscript is somewhere between thirty and forty percent finished, which isn’t bad. As I was reading it again last night and catching all these horrific little mistakes, again the sympathy for my editor came out again–not to mention embarrassment: you let your editor see a manuscript this fucking sloppy? What the hell is wrong with you? A very good question, indeed.

Yesterday I signed, and got the electronic counter signature on, a contract for a new book which could be the first in a new series. This is both exciting and daunting; it’s going to be something utterly and completely different from anything I’ve ever done before–and Constant Reader knows how much I enjoy a challenge–and of course, after I got bleary-eyed from corrections last night my mind started wandering all over the place with potential ideas for the book and for future ones in the series. I also started fleshing out the supporting cast for the series, and had some (what I think) really good ideas. It was actually a lot of fun–part of the reason I write in the first place is because I enjoy it so much; at least the exercise of my creativity, at any rate–and whether any or all of those ideas and thoughts will make it to the final product certainly remains to be seen, it was a lot of fun sitting in my easy chair and writing them all done and letting my mind wander freely. This is pretty exciting, all in all, and as I said, a bit of a departure for me writing-wise. The manuscript is due on January 15th of next year, which means I am having to adjust my writing schedule (sorry, folks, Scotty will be pushed back to the first quarter of next year) but again, it’s not that terribly big of a deal to do so in the first place…and while I am still saving September for Chlorine, I am going to start the work on this new one–background and so forth–while doing so. Wednesday I am going scouting for locations; that will also be incredibly fun, methinks–and I am also going to have to try to remember what things were like here in the past (not too much, of course, but somewhat), which will also dovetail a bit with “Never Kiss a Stranger” as well.

I guess all the New Orleans/Louisiana history I’ve been reading will come in handy a bit, won’t it?

We had a particularly intense thunderstorm–or string of them–last night beginning around six pm; it was nice, as always, to listen to the thunder and the continuous downpour while snuggled into my easy chair under a blanket with a purring kitty sleeping in my lap as I made notes in my journal. I was tired by the time I got home last night–I really need to make a to-do list and focus on things–and so I wasn’t really in the mood to do a whole lot of editing or anything else (hence why I am not as far along with the manuscript as I would have hoped to be by today); I did some laundry and discovered the my leaking dishwasher–well, the leak from the dishwasher–might not actually have a whole lot to do with the dishwasher and everything to do with my garbage disposal, which hasn’t been working lately. I was doing the dishes last night, not using the dishwasher, but water was pooling up on the floor in front of the dishwasher. I know they are connected somehow–sometimes when the dishwasher runs, soapy water will come up into that sink–but that could solve the mystery; there’s probably nothing more than a pipe that needs to either be tightened in some way or replaced. I suspect, however, that this will involve a process of moving the dishwasher out and getting back into there and–ugh, just the thought of having to deal with any of this is making me tired already.

It is always something, isn’t it? But it’s okay. I am kind of looking forward to doing a deep clean of every room in the downstairs while I am on vacation; perhaps one room per day, or something, I don’t know–but I definitely want to get a lot of this stuff all taken care of while I am home all those days. I am also very well aware of my own tendency to procrastinate AND be lazy–oh, I can skip doing anything today because I have five more days off–but the plan, for right now at any rate, is to get as much done this week so that I can take three days off this weekend (Saturday thru Monday) to read and do as little as possible and just relax and get all rested up so I can really do a deep dive into the first draft of Chlorine next month.

One can hope, at any rate. And now to get ready for an exciting day at the office. Happy Tuesday, everyone!

Brand New Me

I won’t go so far as to say there’s a new Gregalicious in town now that I’ve hit sixty, but I do feel like some things have…well, shifted a little bit in my head. Maybe that counts as a brand new me, maybe it doesn’t…but I kind of like the way things are going now that I am sixty and who knows? Maybe the world is ready for a new Gregalicious. God knows stranger things have definitely happened.

And apparently continue to happen.

I started working on the revisions yesterday–despite the welcome distraction from an out-of-the-blue phone call for advice from an acquaintance I think rather highly of; we stayed on the phone nearly two hours (which is why I abhor the phone and don’t use it very often; I lose track of time when I am talking and I can talk for literal hours, so it’s really better for everyone if I don’t ever use my phone as a phone) and I even made it to the gym. I got pretty far into it, but I suspect the real work is in the later chapters anyway–at least, I certainly hope so, or I am doing a shitty job of revising things–but this manuscript went through so many changes and revisions in the six or so years since I spat out that first draft in a month that there’s still a lot to catch–incorrect tenses, first person vs. third mistakes, repetitive things–that it will probably take me quite a while to go over everything as thoroughly as I should; and really, after I get through it all one more time, I should probably do it yet again before sending it in to my long-suffering editor. (Considering the mess I originally sent her…she probably just exhaled an enormous sigh of relief, if she read this, that is.) I got through the first quarter of the book yesterday; if all goes well and the creek don’t rise, I would love to have this out of my hair (scalp?) by the weekend.

We finished watching Sky Rojo last night (an absolutely insane crime drama from Spain, about three hookers who try to escape their pimp; it’s action-packed and quite insane–and also quite riveting) before watching the first two episodes of The Chair, with Sandra Oh, which is now on Netflix and is about the English department (Oh is the first woman, let alone woman of color, to chair the department) at a small New England almost-Ivy League college). It was entertaining enough to make us want to continue watching this evening, but it also kind of needs to pick up the pacing a little bit (in my opinion). The mileage of others might vary, of course, but I will pretty much watch Sandra Oh in everything–she always delivers–but the male love interest (and former chair of the department) is extremely irritating if not a bit on the toxic side; but he’s presented as merely an eccentric author and a brilliant teacher, so all the other shit doesn’t seem to much matter–and I don’t like that, honestly; I’m so tired of man-babies being given a pass that isn’t given to others.

Megan Abbott’s The Turnout–I am not quite to page 100 yet–is, as all Megan Abbott novels, rather spectacular. I would love to know how she creates that languid, almost dream-like mood spell she casts over all of her books; her authorial voice is so distinctive and unique you always know you are reading a Megan Abbott novel–no one else can spin magic the way she does. It’s about a ballet school in a smaller town, somewhere in the Midwest (at least that’s the impression I’ve gotten thus far) and it really is almost hypnotic the way she draws you into this magic world she’s creating. I am going to treat myself to a bit of it every night when I get home from work; I may dedicate one of my Bouchercon vacation days to curling up in a chair, forgetting about the rest of the world, and losing myself in the book. It’s an exception novel in a year that has already produced some remarkable crime novels.

It seems to be getting lighter outside now; it was pitch black when I woke up–which seemed weird; I couldn’t remember if it is usually that dark out when I get up on these early mornings (how soon we forget, right?). Who knows? I am rarely–barely–conscious before all the coffee kicks in by nine (which is why I have to get up so early, so I can be functional for my first client at nine), and God knows my memory can no longer be counted on for anything, so…there’s that. But I only have to go in today and tomorrow, and then I am off for nearly a week (I don’t return to the office until a week from Tuesday), which is going to be incredibly glorious. I am hoping to be able to get a lot finished during that time–reading, writing, cleaning, organizing–but…there’s never a guarantee with one Gregalicious that I will want to do anything on those days…

I did make it to the gym yesterday for a fairly decent workout; the renovation isn’t quite completed–the new floor is in but all the new equipment hadn’t arrived and/or been set up by yesterday–so i am very hopeful that Wednesday (I am not going to even try going after work either night this work week) everything will be where it’s supposed to be and I can get the workout in that I would like to get in. It’s funny–I had made up my mind that August was going to be the month where I really start hitting the gym hard and pushing myself….only for the gym to go through a renovation with limited workout opportunities! Ah well, when it rains and all that. September is a good month for a workout reboot anyway; it’s slightly (not much) cooler. The goal is to have dropped down to 200 or so by the end of this year, and then I will reassess and determine what the next goal is going to be.

And on that note, perhaps it is time for me to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader!

It’s Not Right But It’s Okay

Sunday morning and it’s probably about time that I get back to work. I don’t want to–this birthday mini-vacation has been quite lovely–but I have things that need to be finished and turned in by the end of this month (hello, edits and revisions) and I have to stop putting that off. I only have to go to the office twice this week–tomorrow and Tuesday–before my Bouchercon vacation begins–but my plans for that time is to get things done and then take time to myself.

Well, I may take Wednesday as a day off. I need to drive around New Orleans and do some research; Wednesday should be perfect for doing that, methinks….so maybe taking a day off to begin with to get into the groove of getting everything done that needs to be done by the end of the month could wait until Thursday to get started…but then on the other hand, maybe it a sight-seeing research trip around the Irish Channel wouldn’t be a huge distraction from getting things done that day….alas, I was supposed to have dinner with great friends that night (fucking Delta variant anyway) but I am going to try, very hard, not to let these things disappoint or depress me. That’s a sure way to guarantee I’ll get nothing done.

I started reading Megan Abbott’s The Turnout yesterday and was, of course, immediately enthralled. She manages to somehow lure you in with the opening sentence, something cryptic, eerie, and yet compelling. Her books always have this same voice–I’d say mournful, but that’s not accurate either–always a variation that fits the story and the characters, but that lyrical, poetic, economic way of establishing mood and dramatic tension is almost ethereal and dream-like; even if the dream will, as always, eventually bare its teeth at the reader. God, how I wish I could write like that. I always wonder how writers as gifted as she write their books–do they write a sentence and then agonize over how to find the right words that create the right rhythm, or do they agonize over which word to add as they go? Me? I just vomit out three thousand or so words at a time and then go back and try to make it say what I wanted to say how I wanted to say it; nothing poetic, lyrical, or dream-like about my work. But I write the way I write–I used to want to be Faulkner when I was in college; I think it’s fairly safe to say that ship has sailed–and I cannot be terribly disappointed by anything I write anymore. I am pleased with the work I am doing–have been doing–and as long as I remain pleased by everything I write going forward, I am going to be just fine. I am intending to spend some more time with Megan Abbott this morning before diving into the edits/revisions before heading to the gym; and intend to do even more revisions/edits after my brief workout this afternoon.

We started watching The White Lotus last night and I am on the fence. I really don’t care much for any of the characters–the acting is terrific, the writing is fine, but I can’t wrap my mind around a point, if there even is one, you know? I rewatched this week’s Ted Lasso, and one thing I’ve noticed–there are so many lovely little touches to this show–that is one of my favorite things is that Keeley always laughs at Ted’s jokes, no matter how corny, no matter how bad the pun–she always laughs, and she always did, from the absolute beginning. In fact, Keeley was the first character on the show to see and accept and like Ted; which made her even more likable.

I also managed to finally get my TCM app working on the Apple TV yesterday–you’ve always needed a television provider for access; once I let Cox go it wouldn’t allow me to use Hulu, but now it does–and I immediately cued up and watched The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, a terrific noir with Barbara Stanwyck as Martha…and as I watched, I realized how much that plot device–a murder committed and covered up by kids, only to have everything come home to roost when they’re adults–gets used a lot today. I saw this movie for the first time when I was a kid, with my grandmother; WGN used to show old movies after the 10:00 pm news in Chicago as well as every afternoon at 3:30 (which is where my educational grounding in classic old films started). I’d forgotten that the magnificent Judith Anderson played Stanwyck’s horrible old aunt that she winds up killing; Anderson was robbed of Oscars at so many turns in her film career–Rebecca, And Then There Were None, this–it really is a shame; but at least those great performances are preserved forever on film. I am very excited, to say the least, about having access to the full range of TCM again; I can now watch movies instead of getting sucked into watching old LSU games on Youtube or history videos (I’ve been watching a lot of biographies of the Bourbon royal family of France during the seventeenth century, and will ask again: why has no queer biographer/historian/novelist written about Louis XIV’s openly gay brother, Monsieur, Philippe duc d’Orleans?). Just glancing through the app yesterday, there were so many movies I wanted to either see for the first time, or rewatch for the first time since I was a child…and of course, watching old film noir (along with reading old noir novels) works as research for Chlorine.

That’s me, multi-tasking and always finding a way to justify wasting time/procrastination. I am quite good at it as well, in case you hadn’t noticed.

I also woke up earlier–well, I woke up around the time I usually do, just got out of bed earlier than usual. The last few days of not getting up before nine, while lovely and restful, also managed to somehow keep the lethargy going throughout the rest of the day. I am hopeful that will not be the case today. I am going to spend an hour or so immersed in Megan’s new book, and then I intend to straighten things up around the kitchen before digging into the edits/revisions of the Kansas book–which I have allowed to languish for far too long–and I also need to clean out some things (spoiled food) from the refrigerator as well as try to get my lunches prepared for the two days in the office this week.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will talk to you on the morrow.

Believe

And now it’s the day after, and you know what? I feel no older, wiser, nor smarter than I do on any given morning. I don’t think I will ever completely grasp why everyone makes such a big deal of birthdays.

I slept very late this morning–past nine, which may be a new record–and I feel very calm, very rested, and very relaxed; an auspicious start to this my sixty-first voyage around the sun. My birthday was actually very chill, and very relaxing. We got up and went to Costco to pick up Paul’s glasses and a few other things (I got a new LSU cap for my birthday–GEAUX TIGERS!!!–and then we went out to Metairie to pick up my amazing deep dish Chicago-style pizza from That’s Amore–jalapeños, hamburger, mushroom, and pepperoni, for those who are wondering–and then came home to have a most relaxing day. I put on last year’s LSU-Florida game for background noise (the Shoe Game, which will never get old or ever stop being funny) and curled up in my chair to finish reading The Other Black Girl, which was amazing–it will be getting its own entry, no worries on that score–and also started reading The Turnout, which of course is the new Megan Abbott. I also watched the season finale of Superman and Lois–seriously, Superman fans, this is the show we’ve been waiting for since Christopher Reeve took off the cape–and then we got caught up on other things, like Ted Lasso, Animal Kingdom, and Titans. We also started watching Nine Perfect Strangers on Hulu; which we’re enjoying, but are there really only three episodes, or did Hulu only drop three to begin with? (A quick google search assures me they only dropped three of eight thus far.)

Overall, I couldn’t have asked for a more delightful birthday. It was exactly what the doctor ordered–no emails, very little social media (trying to like all the happy birthday wishes on Facebook; I’m not sure I succeeded), and no stress at all. It was marvelous, really, and then a wonderful night’s sleep capped off the end of the day. If this is indicative of what my sixties are going to be like, well, then I am ALL about them. Today I am going to run a single errand–picking up the mail–and then I am going to come hide back inside the cool of the Lost Apartment, read more of The Turnout, and then I am going to start working on the edits for #shedeservedit. I also at some point–possibly during the reconfigured Bouchercon vacation–need to do the copy edits on Jackson Square Jazz so I can finally get its ebook up for sale (as well as a print edition, and the print edition of Bourbon Street Blues as well), not to mention work on Chlorine. I also have a contract for an exciting new project to go over before signing and returning it; so my weekend is going to be fairly full this weekend. We’ll probably start on The White Lotus tonight, as well as maybe something else; I’m not sure what, really. I also know there are some absolute classic noirs that have been airing lately I would love to rewatch–I’m looking at you, In a Lonely Place and The Strange Love of Martha Ivers–and as always, there is so little time to get everything finished that one wants to get finished.

But I also have to do some organizing around here as well. I put that off for far too long far too often, and I often, even when I do filing and organizing, inevitably always have some odds and ends I am not quite what to do with; today is the day I am going to do something with those things–or throwing them the fuck out. I also have to figure out what I am going to do with all those boxes of files I moved out from under my desk and scattered discreetly (ha ha ha as if) around the living room; a lot of those files are New Orleans and Louisiana research I may never get to use, or get around to using–and the more you learn about local history here, the more you realize you’ll never really know. That can be daunting, of course, but for me–it just fuels my desire to know, and learn, more.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to make a research trip out to the old guardian forts along the mouths of the Mississippi and near the openings of the lakes–I suspect at some point Scotty is going to wind up left to die in one of those old forts, or something; it’s simply too good of material to just continue to let sit there, mouldering and crumbling in our swamp climate without ever writing about them; just like one of these days I need to write a Scotty book that somehow involves Jean Lafitte and pirate treasure. The next Scotty, Mississippi River Mischief, is very amorphous right now and is going to need some more gelling and planning and pulling together; but I think it’s going to be one of the better Scotty books, I really do.

When I get to it. I do also think I want to get the Scotty Bible written and pulled together–at long last; only in process to write the ninth book in the series, so finally? I also want to catch things from older books that have been left hanging. It’s also occurred to me that I could go back in time and write Scotty adventures–there’s time, after all, between books for other cases to drop into the boys’ laps; and it might be fun to go back and revisit Scotty in the early days of his relationships and his detecting career, such as it is.

I am also thinking about a stand alone book with my true-crime writer, who’s crossed over between both series now, and whose name I cannot think of right now–oh, yes. JERRY. I could write an interesting story about him as well, methinks, although he would be the perfect main character for a novella I am planning to do for Chanse…in fact, I thought about using him as the POV character before realizing it works better as a Chanse novella than as a Jerry story.

And on that note, I am going to go curl up with Megan Abbott for a bit before I can run my errands, while swilling more coffee. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader.

Got to Be Real

Sixty Eve!

Tis the last day of my fifties and it’s also a work-at-home day. I may go to the gym later–the jury remains out on that one for now–but I have data to enter and condom packs to stuff and television shows to catch up on while I stuff the condom packs and so…yeah. A full day for the last of my fifties, methinks. Tomorrow I mostly want to just hang out around the house and be a slug and read all day–I’ll probably straighten and organize too, it’s a compulsion–but I really want to just finish reading my book and start the next one. Over the course of the weekend, I’ll get other things done, of course–but tomorrow–other than the dash out to Metairie to get my deep dish pizza–I intend to literally be nothing more than a slug of the worst kind around here.

I may even allow myself a second Coke.

That’s me, living large on my sixtieth birthday.

I was actually looking at my submissions spreadsheet yesterday (mainly to make sure my list of published stories for the next collection was correct), and imagine my surprise to see I haven’t submitted much this year–one short story in January that was rejected–and prior to that, it’s been well over a year since I sent out any short stories for submissions. I have written–and started–any number of short stories in the mean time; but my, how time does fly when you really aren’t paying attention. I would have sworn those stories were sold this past year, but they came OUT this year; big difference, really.

But–it looks like I have about ten or so stories published that weren’t included in Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories, so I am about half-way there for my second collection–and there are some unpublished ones I can also include in the new collection, which is pretty awesome.

Our gym is doing renovations, and is also asking for proof of vaccination for entry–which I deeply appreciate–but the renovations make working out a bit of a challenge. They’re putting in, among other things, a new floor and getting new equipment for the weight room, so all the current equipment is shoved into the room on the first floor where the spin classes are….and it’s a very tight fit. Every open space that is not the weight room floor on the first floor has equipment crammed into it; I appreciate them staying open for the renovation but at the same time…it definitely makes it more difficult to get the workout in, and you are crammed into much tighter space with strangers. I walked over there last night after work (Christ, the humidity was intense) and just dashed through my upper body workout–no stretching–and got out as quickly as humanly possible. I feel good for going–it would have been easy to decide not to–and this morning I feel a bit tight in places, so the workout worked, which was incredibly cool.

But my God, was I overheated and drenched in sweat when I got home!

I also got a new Fitbit; this isn’t out of some insane desire to track my fitness and my steps and my day-to-day activity; having something that monitors this for our health insurance is in my best interests, and after my last Fotbit gave up the ghost, I just started using the Apple Heart program on my phone…but it doesn’t sync with my health insurance website, etc etc etc., and a Fitbit worked remarkably well back when I had one a gazillion years ago–so, hello sixtieth birthday present! (I told you I was leaning into this sixty thing.) So, my sixtieth birthday gifts to myself thus far include a new computer, a new phone, a new Fitbit, a new aromatherapy atomizer for the kitchen, new shoes, and (of course) a shit ton of new books. Today I have a lot of things to do around the house in addition to working-at-home duties (the dishwasher is leaking, so I have to do them all by hand; and of course, the bed linens are done every Thursday), and I also have to box up my old computer so I can ship it back to Apple for recycling. Tomorrow, being the birthday itself, I plan on just hanging out around the house and reading. I don’t think I will leave the house other than going out to Metairie to get my deep-dish Chicago style pizza (and the mail, and Costco to pick up Paul’s new glasses), but no gym, no work, no being on-line (other than trying to keep up with birthday wishes on Facebook, a time consuming, if delightful, exercise)…and no concerns about getting any writing or editing done. I had thought about making it a completely free weekend, frankly–but i know myself too well to think I won’t be antsy and checking my emails and social media accounts and so forth. I think I’ll most likely simply structure my days so that I handle all of the stuff I want to do by a certain time in the afternoon before adjourning to my easy chair for reading. I want to finish The Other Black Girl so I can move on to The Turnout–after which I will most likely dive into either A Beautiful Crime or Yes Daddy; to be determined….and again I need to start pruning the books. I am going to likely take at least one day of next weeks Boucher-vacation to work on cleaning out the attic…and at some point I’m going to have to start working on the storage unit…but I’ll cross that terrifying bridge when I come to it.

And while I pack condoms today I will watch the season finale of Superman and Lois, as well as getting caught up on my Real Housewives shows, which I am not really enjoying this season as much as past ones…not sure what that’s about, but it might be worthy of its own post once I get that figured out.

And on that note, I have condoms to pack and data to enter. Tomorrow I will check in for the Big (?) Day. Have a lovely Sixty Eve, Constant Reader!

Holding Out for a Hero

Wednesday and sixty has crept yet another day closer. In fact, today is Sixty Eve Eve! All About Sixty Eve Eve?

Honestly, I can barely stand myself sometimes!

Yesterday I started the long process of the revisions/edits/tweaks the Kansas book needs; God, I am so heartily sick of those opening chapters I don’t even know how to begin to describe just HOW sick I am of those chapters. This book has had more drafts than any other one I’ve written since maybe Murder in the Rue Dauphine–which I’ve always thought had an excessive amount of draft versions–but in fairness, I’ve told and retold and made up my mind how to tell this story and then changed my mind yet again and so…draft after draft after draft after draft. So many changes, so many corrections, so many characters had their names changed, and then whole thing is really just a big old mess. The manuscript I sent my editor was probably so bad it counted as creating an abusive workplace environment. But as I started going through it all again last night–I couldn’t help but feel the excitement I did have about this project at one time; and I look forward to its release when I can share everything with you, Constant Reader.

But oy–cleaning up this manuscript mess is going to be a challenge and a half. But I CAN DO IT. I know I can.

I also want to go over “The Sound of Snow Falling” one more time. I think it needs yet another tweak I missed the last time around–I was actually rather pleasantly surprised by how well it played out in the original draft–my original drafts are inevitably messy, sloppy, and too embarrassing for me to let anyone else see. (Another issue with donating my papers somewhere–the last thing I want to do is have people reading my horribly patchy and sketchy initial drafts of anything–although for someone who finds that sort of thing interesting, I suppose the journey from horrifyingly sloppy first draft to final, polished draft might be their cup of tea.

I mean, as an intellectual exercise to see how a book or story might come together, sure. But I would tend to think it would get tedious rather quickly.

Then again, maybe that’s just me.

I was tired yesterday when I got off work; I was definitely out of the habit of waking up early over the last few days–not that I ever really get used to getting up early. I could have this schedule for the rest of my life, five days per week, and I would still grumble and be sleepy and tired and slightly crabby all day every single time I have to get up early. I had planned on going to the gym after work, but I was so tired by the time I was done for the day I didn’t really feel like I had much of a choice; just the thought of the walk in the heavy humidity-it rained off and on all afternoon–also would have curled up my hair if I had any. Instead, when I got home I took a quick shower to wash the day off me and curled up in my easy chair with purr-kitty and The Other Black Girl. (I am going to read Megan Abbott’s latest, The Turnout, next; I’ve been itching to get it started) Yesterday was a definite low-energy day; hopefully I’ll have a bit more energy today to get things done. It also started pouring down rain when I got home, which wasn’t exactly encouraging me to go outside and walk for ten minutes to get there, either. I read about another fifty or sixty pages of the book, enjoying it tremendously still–perhaps I can finish it tonight–and then watched the A&E bio of MTV before going to bed last night. I slept really well again last night–it goes without saying that I really didn’t want to get up this morning, but I am not as sleepy/still tired the way I was yesterday, which is also fine; perhaps I won’t be too tired to get things done today the way I was yesterday. It’s also Pay-the-Bills Day (hurray for pay day?), so I will definitely be having to spend some time doing exactly that this morning.

Huzzah?

At least I can pay them; that’s probably the best way to look at the situation.

I still haven’t made that crucial to-do list, either. Maybe today? But at least tomorrow is the work-at-home day this week, and then of course Friday is the big birthday. What am I going to do for turning sixty? Going to drive out to Metairie and get a deep-dish pizza from That’s Amore, for one thing; which is most likely going to be all I do for the day. I’m not a big let’s do something major for my birthday person; haven’t been that in quite some time, and frankly, just being able to laze around the house without guilt–a day off where I don’t feel like I am wasting the day, or like I should be doing something other than being lazy–is actually sufficient. If I don’t have The Other Black Girl finished by then, I will most likely get it finished on Friday, and then will curl up with Megan Abbott. I really need to dig into my reading more–I am getting further and further behind in my reading, as the TBR Pile continues to grow larger at an increasingly terrifying rate–and I am most likely going to go back to placing a moratorium on buying books for a little while again; at least until I make some more progress on the reading.

The dishwasher started leaking last night–it’s always something around the Lost Apartment, seriously–and so I am going to have to start doing the dishes by hand again. At least this time I have the dishwasher to load them into to dry, which is something I didn’t have the last time the dishwasher conked on for a while–so they’ll be, at the very least, out of the way until they dry–but it’s still a pain in the ass. I don’t recall how old this dishwasher is–my sense of time is so fucked up and skewed I don’t remember how old anything is; I still can’t get over how old my old desktop was by the time I finally replaced it–but it should have definitely lasted a while longer, methinks; the failure of appliances to last for decades is something that still catches me off guard and by surprise.

Obviously, in some ways I am still stuck in my childhood, remembering things like how my mother’s first washer and dryer lasted for over twenty years….

And on that note, tis time to head back into the spice mines.

Young Hearts Run Free

And here we are on a lovely and quiet and calm Sunday morning; in which I don’t even have to go outside unless I actually want to–and the odds are against that, believe you me.

Well, not entirely true, as nothing is; I’ll have to take out the trash and the recycling at some point, and of course, if I use the grill for burgers today (a Sunday summer tradition; in the fall I switch to Saturdays for LSU games) but other than that, I am staying inside the cool of the Lost Apartment today. Tomorrow I’ll go to the gym (I went yesterday rather than Friday), go to the bank, get the mail and do other errands–it’s lovely having that option with the extra vacation day we received this week–and of course, I am taking Friday off for my birthday. I wasn’t planning on doing so, but then I figured why the hell not? You only turn sixty once.

I told you I decided to lean into the sixty thing. Only four more days of my fifties left!

Yesterday was nice, really. I read for a while yesterday morning (I am loving The Other Black Girl so much), and ran my errands; it was ninety-five degrees but during the day the humidity was low (at least while I was out in it) so it wasn’t as terribly unpleasant as it could easily have been; and then when I got home I walked to the gym. The gym is in the process of a $250,000 renovation–delayed thanks to COVID-19–so working out was interesting; I had to find things as everything was moved around for the arrival of new machines and the putting in of a new floor in the weight room, but over all it was fine; it will be problematic probably on Wednesday night during peak times, so I may change up my work out days this week. But it felt good–as it always should–and afterwards I walked home (it was definitely humid then) and came back to the house and started working around here–cleaning and so forth. I reread some of the Secret Project and spotted the places I am going to need to get fixed up and prepared and so forth; I also worked on “The Sound of Snow Falling” a bit. Was it as highly a productive day as I would like? No, probably not, but I also kept remembering I have nothing to do today other than read, write, clean and organized, so today will be the load-bearing day of the weekend, methinks. I am going to have some breakfast and some more coffee; then I am going to type up the editorial notes I have for the next book, read for a bit, and then I am going to probably write Chapter Four of Chlorine and work on “The Sound of Snow Falling.” I may even take some time to start writing emails I won’t send until tomorrow morning–remember, I have a very strict policy on not sending emails on the weekend.

But the nights of good sleep are plentiful, and I feel rested every day when I get up (today I was a lag-a-bed until nine! Just like the last two days! Madness!) and I feel more like myself than I have in a very long time–like there’s been a cloud in my brain that has finally lifted; I know that’s not very clear but that’s the best metaphor I can come up with one cup of coffee so sue me–and while I may not be writing as much as I was, say, last month…I am making definite progress on things and feel very much centered. I do wish I was writing more–but today should get me back into the swing of writing again, and I am very excited to be writing on my new computer–which also accesses files on my laptop, which is amazing (and the obverse is also true). I’m probably going to do some more cleaning and organizing this morning; I really need to get these boxes out from under my desk–I can undoubtedly cram some more things into the filing cabinet, which I will most likely get handled this morning–and I do want to prune the books a bit more, or at least get them better organized. (I’m afraid I’ve been acquiring again, alas.)

I also stopped working yesterday around five expecting Paul to be home soon (not until after eight thirty) and while I waited for him, I decided to give Loki another whirl after the disappointing, almost tedious first episode–and was very glad I did. I got very caught up in the story–which was incredibly smart and clever, with some great surprises and twists. Next thing I knew, I had blown through four or five episodes before Paul got home–which enabled us to watch Ted Lasso (me for the second time) before watching last week’s disturbing episode of American Horror Stories–which is so much better than American Horror Story it’s not even funny. I may have to finish Loki this morning while Paul sleeps, now that I think about it. I can go through my journals and mark the pages with notes for both Chlorine and the other secret project, as well as for the Kansas book.

My, what a busy boy one Gregalicious is these days! But that’s also fine; I don’t really feel any paralysis of oh my god how will I get all this done so why even try; rather, I am making lists and crossing things off, which was how I used to always deal with feeling overwhelmed; accept it, write down everything, and start getting them done. So yes, I think, after I post this i am going to go ahead and make that to-do list, and start getting things done.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. You have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.

When I Grow Up

Saturday morning and yesterday was lovely, as we slowly begin counting down the last days of my fifties. Hurray!

Yesterday was actually kind of lovely. I had my spa day (in full transparency, that means I got a back wax) which I enjoyed (at some point in time I will discuss how I feel about body hair, particularly that which grows on one’s back), got my prescription, got Scooter’s insulin syringes, got the mail, made groceries, and got phô (AT LAST), and the phô (from Lilly’s Cafe on Magazine) was truly magnificent. I got home around two thirty; it was a weird weather day in New Orleans, where the sun was shining in parts of the city and there was a downpour in others, along with thunder and lightning; which enabled me to experience all the vagaries of a summer day’s weather in the city in August over the course of two hours. After the errands were completed and my phô bowl was empty, I spent the rest of the day relaxing and organizing and cleaning–yes, yes, I know, but organizing and cleaning (like the LSU 2019 football season) is my happy place. I wound up not reading much, nor doing any writing, but I managed to get a lot done. I am still not as organized as I would like to be, as I think I should be, but I have three more days without work pressure to get through, and so while I am going to spend some time writing and reading over the next three days, I also want to finish getting organized. I’ve been so scattered and disorganized for so long–really, since the Great Data Disaster of 2018–that getting that particular act together has been enormously helpful, and I think if I actually can go ahead and get completely organized, that will make my getting everything done that I need to get done finished that much easier.

I am going to spend some time this morning with The Other Black Girl. I have to get the mail today–I am expecting some things–after which I’m planning on braving the West Bank to do some box store shopping (the traffic over there is always horrible, even on the best of days; and now that I am thinking about it some more, perhaps I should just wait and go on Monday; it’s not pressing. I can just get the mail today, really, and pick up a few things at the corner Walgreens–which I now think might be the best option? We’ll see how I feel).

But I got all my Chlorine research organized–I went through my journal (the most recent one) last night and marked the pages where I brainstormed the book; I need to do that to several more of the last ones, actually)–and I also have a secret project which I look forward to telling you about, Constant Reader; I know it’s disappointing on some levels, but I am having to push writing the next Scotty, Mississippi River Mischief, to the first quarter of next year. I also managed to get some other things organized; I need to do something about these boxes of files under my desk for one thing, and in looking through the stuff in my filing cabinet, I also realized that a lot of the stuff in there could be shifted into boxes and moved up into the attic. I do have the boxes….and I am also thinking it may be time to do another book purge, in order to drop off some boxes on this coming Thursday to the library sale.

In other words, I am looking forward to a typical Saturday around the Lost Apartment. I do need to get to the gym today (I didn’t go yesterday) and will be going again on Monday rather than Sunday; but I also have to get really started on the edits of #shedeservedit if I am going to get those finished by the end of the month. The fact that I have absolutely no desire to do it is of course indicative of how much I need to do it and how much I will actually enjoy doing it once I get started going on them. I also need to finish the second draft of “The Sound of Snow Falling”, and what better time to do that than this weekend? I love the new computer and it’s so much easier to work on than the old one was; but I best be using the hell out of it now that I spent the money on it. I’m still a bit in awe of it–the picture quality is so good it’s like having another television for the kitchen (I went ahead and watched the latest episode of Ted Lasso on here last night while Paul worked on a grant–I know, but the great thing about Ted Lasso is rewatching isn’t an ordeal, and this last episode, a Christmas episode airing in August, was just absolutely perfect and made me tear up several times as well as laugh out loud; I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to do a Christmas episode/movie/book of any kind any more without it being heavy-handed and cheesy…but I need to stop ever doubting Ted Lasso; the show is always a joy and those twenty Emmy nominations, especially those for the cast, are extremely well-deserved)–and the sound and picture is amazing. That means I can watch football games in here this fall while cleaning and/or doing other things…which is heavenly.

And yes I am well aware of the fact that the honeymoon period will end soon….but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the fuck out of it while it’s still happening.

I also got caught up on my Real Housewives watching. I had cut back to just watching the two I started with (New York and Beverly Hills), but these aren’t good seasons for either; and just watched the Erika Jayne/Girardi divorce/criminal investigation/civil suits play out makes me a bit uncomfortable. I don’t have much sympathy for either her or her husband–you can deny all you want to, but settlement money for victims disappearing means it went somewhere, and one thing so many people in this country don’t understand is you can still be punished for profiting from a crime even if you didn’t know you were profiting from a crime. I don’t see how she thinks she can escape financial liability–possibly a sympathetic judge and jury would spare her from jail time–but it’s difficult to watch her excuses and her self-pity; she has no tears or empathy for her husband’s victims. Rather, it’s all about her and what she’s going through; and frankly, every time she cries me me me me I think to myself lock this bitch up and throw away the key. So, between the snooze-fest that is this season‘s New York and the real life criminality being exposed on Beverly Hills–and being coddled–might have me finally cutting the cord with these two shows. I have no desire to watch Dallas, but have heard good things about both Potomac and Salt Lake City (which also is filming during the real-life criminal exposure of a cast member)…but I also kind of wonder if these shows haven’t already run their course? Society and the culture have experienced a significant shift over the last four years….and maybe the time for shows like this is past.

And on that note, I am going to get another cup of coffee and spend some more time with The Other Black Girl, which is truly terrific. Have a lovely August Saturday, Constant Reader–and I will check in with you tomorrow, if not later.

I Drove All Night

Friday and the first day of my four day weekend! Woo-hoo!

And I got my new computer yesterday–and practically wept for joy once I had it set up (which literally took NO time at all). It’s so fast, the picture quality is stunning (I played the 2019 LSU-Alabama game on it thru Youtube while I did the dishes, and the picture quality is better than my television’s. And yes, that game is one of my main happy places, sue me.) It’s been amazing so far; but I also need to remember to enjoy these it’s amazingly functional and fast days for the inevitable day when the spinning wheel starts showing up again, or programs start freezing or locking up, and the whole hellish Mac computer thing starts all over again.

Today is a Gregalicious day; I had already decided earlier this week that would be what today would be for me. I have a spa appointment at twelve thirty (for a waxing, if you want to know, and sorry about the TMI if you didn’t) but it’s all a part of the new attitude towards celebrating being sixty, and part of my personal wellness journey. There was just something about going to the gym the other night for the rebirth of Leg Day into my life that switched my mindset around, or flipped a switch in my head about working out; maybe it was the tiredness of my legs the last two days around here, which means I am aware of the work my body is doing? While I have been going to the gym and working out fairly regularly since we joined the new gym, it’s not like I’ve been enjoying the workouts, or even had much of a goal going forward with it–more of a I am doing this to be healthier and to try to be in better shape. I’ve not wanted much to mess with my eating habits/diet; I’ve never rearranged the way I eat for weight control, choosing the workout path on its own entirely. Maybe I should do something about my eating habits; trying to eat healthier, or something. I want to lose some fat weight–I had gotten down to 200 but am now back up to 211 again, and i’d rather be around 200, possibly even as low as 190. It’s possible and I am going to work my way up (down?) to that goal. Part of the issue with the working out is that I didn’t have a set goal–before, as I have said, I always planned my goals around peaking at the holidays–Decadence, Halloween, and Carnival–and while I have no intentions of ever running around at those events next to naked again under any circumstances, maybe it’s not a bad idea to use those dates as goal dates…my mind is already wired that way.

We started watching the new season of Titans last night on HBO MAX–I’ve always loved the Titans; they were amongst my favorites in the DC Universe, and Nightwing has always been one of my favorite heroes in that universe–and was surprised/not surprised to see the Joker killing off Jason Todd before the opening credits of Episode One. As I explained to Paul, back in the 1980’s as a publicity gimmick, DC ran a contest about killing off Jason Todd/Robin, fully expecting the readers to vote to keep him alive. They didn’t; and I will be the first to admit I voted for him to die daring DC to actually pull the plug on a major character in the Batman universe; DC called the readers’ bluff and killed off Jason in the now famous “A Death in the Family” story, which was also around the time the Batman stories took their turn toward the truly dark and noir.

Today I am going to, as I said, have a spa appointment. I also have to pick up another box of Scooter’s insulin syringes and get the mail. Obviously, I am trying to figure out the most efficient way to do the errands, as always, and think I’ll start with the spa day and go further afield uptown from there before coming home and spending some time with The Other Black GIrl. I also need to head to the gym at some point today, preferably before five (when it starts getting crowded again) and I will probably spend a goodly amount of time playing with my new computer, which is always a fun way to spend time. I’m going to spend the rest of this morning probably cleaning out my email inbox, as well as doing some other neatening/straightening up around my office area; I don’t have to be at my spa appointment until twelve thirty. I would like to get phô today, but with the gym and the protein shake I may have to put off the phô until tomorrow, alas.

I’m also going to possibly–just possibly–do a little bit of writing work today–I know, that’s not a Gregalicious Day Off thing, but I do need to get that short story revision typed up, and I also need to get my notes for the revision of #shedeservedit typed up, and I should probably spend the weekend going over that manuscript and making corrections to be input while I am on vacation in two weeks in order to get it all finished by the end of the month.

So, yes, I have a lot of plans for the rest of this month that really need to get done absolutely; and the first thing in order to be certain it’s all going to get done is to make sure that I have a to-do list in place….and so that’s what I am going to do for the majority of the rest of this morning; getting a bit organized. And yes, that does count as a Gregalicious Day Off activity; because it will relieve my mind and help me relax.

And on that note, tis off to the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday the 13th, everyone!

Get On Your Feet

Thursday and we have reached the work-at-home portion of one Gregalicious’ work week; the last workday of the week, in fact, since the agency is closing tomorrow and Monday to give us a lovely little treat of a holiday. Huzzah! Huzzah for a long weekend! Huzzah for a long weekend I have to spend revising my next manuscript! Oh, wait a minute…that’s not a huzzah, is it?

YES IT IS BECAUSE IT’LL BE FUN!

I’m actually looking forward to finishing the edits on this thing, to be honest with you. I wrote the first draft in July of 2015; in fact, wrote 97,000 words in thirty-one days–and really, over the years of adapting and changing and revising, not a whole let changed–character names, the time when the story takes place, some minor things here and there–and most of the problems reported back to me from my editor result from those changes; changes from first person to third and back again; past tense to present tense to past again; etc. etc. etc. There are also some other minor changes and tweaks that need to be made as well–and yes, it will be time consuming and perhaps a bit tiresome, but it will be absolutely delightful to write finis to this story at long last.

I do want to get some more chapters of Chlorine finished this month as well; although I am scheduling September to be my “finish first draft of Chlorine” month; hopefully I will stay on schedule and get that done; it would be awesome to get like the first fifty pages or so polished and out to agents in October, wouldn’t it? Why yes, yes it would.

Fingers crossed, right?

I also had an odd sort of epiphany last night–yesterday afternoon, really–about turning sixty in (gulp) eight days. I wasn’t really sure, honestly, how to feel about it? I don’t care about being old, or even older; I have mentioned before that sixty was affecting me in some ways I couldn’t explain, and didn’t understand fully–which has led me to think more about this birthday than I have any other I’ve experienced previously. I’ve never seen the point of celebrating birthdays, honestly; you did nothing to be born–that was your parents–and celebrating another year was essentially, the way I saw it, simply an acknowledgement that you’ve survived another year, and why would you celebrate something that really, just kind of happened as a result of mostly happy accidents and not being in the wrong place at the wrong time? But the survived part kind of stuck in my head yesterday as I was thinking about it, and that got my mind going another way. I have, indeed, simply survived for almost sixty years–and that really is something. I never thought I would last this long–certainly not during the plague years, where I always assumed it was simply a matter of time before I got infected and died horribly–but the very fact that I did make it through the plague years is something, after all. And as I thought more about all the friends and loved ones and strangers I’ll never know about who didn’t get to live to be sixty, I realized I needed to celebrate and embrace this birthday if for no other reason than to do so for those who didn’t get to make it this far.

So….I decided I want that marvelous deep dish Chicago-style pizza from That’s Amore in Metairie for my birthday. I made an appointment for some Greg-care on Friday at a spa on Magazine Street. I decided to go ahead and buy a new computer; why am I suffering with this seven-year-old that is just limping along and wastes so much time with the spinning wheels of death? I put in a vacation request for my birthday. And so what if I pamper myself a little bit? Why shouldn’t I?

And last night was the return of the dreaded LEG DAY, and you know what? It wasn’t so awful. Granted, I just did three sets of the leg exercises I had already been doing, then added one set of four new exercises with a light weight–but I also need to get my legs used to being pushed again, and it actually felt quite marvelous, to be honest. I stretched after lifting weights, and so my legs feel nice and tired today, but not achy. I am going to run to the office in a little bit to drop off boxes of condom packs and Scooter’s used insulin syringes (lovely how I have a job where syringe disposal is an option), and then it’s back home to get some data entry done and more condom packs made. Later, even though it’s a terrible time to head out to Metairie to the Apple Store, I am going to do that tonight and get my new computer so it’s all set up and ready to operate over the course of this lovely four day work weekend that is currently looming–the thought of spending most of tomorrow curled up with The Other Black Girl is so simply marvelous I can hardly stand it, really–and then I can spend the next three days writing and revising and cleaning and organizing and doing what I usually do on a weekend…although I also have Monday to go along with it.

Huzzah!

And on that note, tis off to the spice mines with me for today. You have a lovely day, Constant Reader.