Category: New Orleans

A Little Bit More

Thursday morning and I have errands to run before I head into the office. Prescription pick-ups and the mail, which means a voyage uptown and then taking Highway 90 all the way back across town until I can get on I-10. I’ve started taking I-10 to and from work, which has dramatically cut back on my travel time. My office is literally a block from the on/off ramps, and I only live six or seven blocks or so from the highway. It only recently occurred to me to take the highway, and was stunned when I got from the office parking lot to my house in about six or seven minutes; if I hit the lights correctly on St. Charles I can do it in almost under five.

Driving through the city instead? Anywhere from fifteen minutes to half an hour. #madness

I woke up tired and a bit out of it this morning; not so much tired as more not rested enough. I’m not sure what that’s all about or why, but it’s annoying and it needs to stop happening. It was that way yesterday as well; I couldn’t really focus because I felt like I was still drowsy all day. Tomorrow I have to get up ridiculously early again (sigh) but I am also going to Costco tomorrow after work, which means girding my loins and sucking it up. The tiredness yesterday also precluded me from actually doing any writing–I did reread Chapter Six, and that was part of it; the chapter as written is a mess and is going to require brain power and work to sort and I just kind of sighed and surrendered in defeat to  it yesterday–and I also reread my story “And The Walls Came Down,” which I want to rewrite and revise and possibly send out to some markets over the course of the weekend. (There’s also more than a slight fear that the early part of the week will render me useless on the weekend, but I do think a good night’s sleep on Friday night will resolve that problem.)

And, of course I am really looking forward to seeing this weekend’s episode of Game of Thrones, to see how the show is going to move through these last three episodes now that the threat of the dead from the north is over. I just have some errands to run and some house to clean–since I get off from work early tomorrow that should do the trick; I am hoping to go to Costco and then come home and perhaps go to the gym (!!!!) before coming back home and cleaning the Lost Apartment. If I can manage to get it cleaned up on Friday, I shall have the weekend to write.

And continue reading Jamie Mason’s The Hidden Things, which I started reading this week and am really enjoying thus far.

And that’s kind of the goal for now, at least.

And now back to the spice mines.

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Only Sixteen

I woke up this morning with no fever and no congestion, huzzah! I still have a sore throat, however, and a little bit of medicine head, but I also went to bed early last night and woke up at a relatively decent, respectable hour–not too early, not too late, which of course is quite lovely. Paul returns home this evening (or sometime in the late afternoon). Therefore I have to run some errands this morning–it cannot be helped–which include going to the West Bank (on a Saturday! Madness) to get him a birthday gift, for his birthday is tomorrow. Since I am over there, I am going to stop at Sonic for lunch (it will be lovely  eating something other than soup, let me tell you) before heading back over here. I need to vacuum downstairs before I head out for the errands, and then until he gets home I am either going to write, or read Kellye Garrett’s wonderful Hollywood Homicide.  I wanted to do both yesterday, but my head was too foggy and medicine-y from all the DayQuil and the final spike of whatever it was that was wrong, and I couldn’t focus. I wound up mostly falling into a Youtube vortex on my television for most of the day–it’s really amazing how many fan videos/theories of Game of Thrones are out there–and I also rewatched last week’s episode of Game of Thrones again. It was, of course, the first and perhaps only episode of the show where someone, anyone, didn’t die–and you know what that means: CAST BLOODBATH TOMORROW. It was so emotionally manipulative, but at the same time genius: by giving the audience these incredibly touching moments, it makes this weekend’s deaths all the more heartrending and poignant. And yes, I cried several times during the rewatch; knowing what was coming didn’t change that: I cried when Jaime asked to serve under Brienne; when Theon offered to fight for Winterfell if Sansa would have him; when Sam gave the sword of his family to Ser Jorah; and of course, the ultimate tears came when Jaime knighted Brienne. Gwendoline Christie deserves an Emmy for that scene alone.

I can’t wait for tomorrow’s episode, even though I know I’ll probably have to take to my fainting couch after.

And those were the scenes that made the tears come; there were others that came close. It was probably one of my favorite episodes of the show, from start to finish; primarily because it was all about character. And that’s what Game of Thrones does so well; character. It’s an epic show to be sure, and even without the strong character development it would still be great to watch…but the character arcs, for me, is what makes the show spectacular.

I am terribly behind on the WIP. April slipped through my fingers somehow; there are only three days left in the month and there is simply no way I am going to be able to get this entire first draft completed in three days. Hell, I haven’t finished the revision of Chapter fucking Four yet, and I still have fifteen new chapters to write. I think it is fairly safe to assume I am off-schedule a little bit (a lot of bit) which means I won’t be getting to the final draft of the other WIP in May the way I’d planned. Meh, it happens. I also need to check my project schedule; I am not sure when exactly I have to step away from all of this to work on another one; it’s sometime this summer, I know, but I don’t remember the date off the top of my head. But I feel so much better this morning than I have all week–I think whatever was wrong with me these last few days clearly started earlier in the week; I was lethargic and fairly low energy since last weekend–and so maybe, once I get home from the errands today I can sit down here at the computer and get Chapter Four finished and maybe even make some headway on Chapter Five. And perhaps work on a short story.

Paul will be home tonight and tomorrow is his birthday, so perhaps I’ll take a look at the movies available to rent on iTunes. I got a giftcard in the mail–when I bought the new Air I also got an Apple Mastercard (ugh, like I need more credit) and I’ve already earned a reward; a $25 gift card for iTunes or the Apple Store. So…maybe I can rent a movie for us to watch tonight for his birthday. There are still plenty of other movies still on both Prime and Amazon that I want to watch, but…since tomorrow is going to be all about Game of Thrones, tonight will be the only option. I think I am also going to get us a deep dish pizza from That’s Amore for our dinner this evening (and it will take care of all our food needs for tomorrow as well).

And on that note, I need to get things done around here before departing for my errands, so I’d best get started on that now.

Happy Saturday, Constant Reader!

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All By Myself

Friday morning sliding into the weekend…and woke up still sick. The throat is still sore and my voice is a Kathleen Turner-like whiskey-soaked rasp; my eyes still ache and so do all my joints, and the fever is still upon me. I just swigged some DayQuil, so am hoping for some relief; this knot of phlegm lodged into the top of my lungs has to loosen and come out at some point, right?

Ye Gods, how I hate being sick. And the older I get, the more susceptible to these things I seem to be.

The weather was horrible yesterday afternoon, but for once, it was lovely to be covered in blankets while the storm raged outside, with a constant downpour of rain and the occasional blast of lightning and thunder. It is, really, the best time to curl up with a good book, and so yesterday I finished reading Alison Gaylin’s next novel, of which I am fortunate enough to have an advance copy. Never Look Back is probably her best book to date, and given she won an Edgar last night, that’s saying something. I then proceeded to start reading Kellye Garrett’s award-winning debut Hollywood Homicide, which I am also greatly enjoying. I really like her main character, and her voice.

And now that the Edgars are over and the program has been printed and distributed, I can now out myself as a judge for Best Paperback Original. That was the book award I was reading for all of last year–and I do mean reading for all of last year. Once again, the Lost Apartment was buried in an avalanche of books, and since electronic editions of books could also be entered, my Kindle is also incredibly full. Led by our distinguished panel chair Alex Segura, my fellow judges (the always delightful and talented Susanna Calkins and Gwen Florio) read and discussed, read some more and discussed some more, and finally narrowed our choices down to our top five and the winner. I do believe our category this past year just might have been the only (if not the only, but one of the few) times in Edgar history where all the finalists in a category were women; that wasn’t our intent, either; it just played out that way, but it was still amazing and cool. Last night’s batch of Edgar winners was also perhaps the most diverse in Edgar history; with Walter Mosley taking home the statue for Best Novel and Robert Feiseler taking home the award for Fact Crime for his Tinderbox, which is about the Upstairs Fire lounge fire in New Orleans back in 1973; the biggest mass murder of gay men until the Pulse shootings in 2016. I wrote about the Upstairs Fire in Murder in the Rue Chartres, and am really looking forward to reading Robert’s book. Sujata Massey also won the Mary Higgins Clark Award, and I feel that Sara Paretsky’s winning the first Sue Grafton Memorial Award would definitely have Sue’s approval.

And huzzah for the wonderful Art Taylor’s Edgar win for Best Short Story! Art is one of the best short story writers around; I keep hoping he’s going to put out a short story collection–I think he’s won every conceivable mystery award for short story now, which is an indication of just how good he is. He’s also one of the nicest people I’ve ever met–in general, not just the mystery community.

Needless to say, the illness has kept me from doing any writing or pretty much anything, really. Yesterday I spent most of the day swilling chicken soup and sitting in my chair under blankets and reading. I watched the live-stream of the Edgar Awards on my television through the Youtube app on my  Apple TV, which was very cool and surreal at the same time. I felt sorry for the young man with the long hair at the front table who was on camera almost the entire night and probably had no idea! Today I am going to probably swill some more soup while again retiring to my chair with Kellye’s book, and then I have an ARC of Jamie Mason’s The Hidden Things which I will tackle next.

And I did have two ideas for stories yesterday, through the DayQuil and fever induced fogginess of my brain. So that’s something, at any rate.

And now back to my blankets.

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Let Your Love Flow

Thursday morning of being without Paul and I woke up with a head full of congestion, something bizarre going on in my stomach, and running a fever. Today is also supposed to be a heavy weather day in New Orleans; there has been a string of horrible storms passing through the Southern states this week, and today is apparently our turn. I am writing this from my bed, with my Macbook Air (which I love love love) and probably am going to go back to sleep soon enough…I totally and utterly despise being sick. But fortunately I have a lot of chicken soup in my cupboards (that hoarder thing) and so once my stomach settles a little bit i might make myself some soup.

I did manage to get some work done on the book yesterday; another 800 words or so, which simply will have to do in the meantime. I felt fine yesterday–I had actually slept deeply and well Tuesday night, after two nights of bad sleep–but last night as I watched The Real Housewives of New York I could feel it starting; that feeling as your head starts to fill with congestion and your throat gets scratchy and dry and your eyes start to feel hot. I went to bed early, hoping a second night’s sleep and a dose of NyQuil would solve the problem, but instead I woke up feeling worse than I had when I went to bed.

An alert for a tornado warning for St. John the Baptist and St. Charles parishes just popped up in the corner of my computer screen. It’s very still here; no wind or anything. The trees outside the window aren’t moving at all, which is unusual–there’s always a breeze of some sort.

Definitely weird weather.

Being sick means I probably won’t be able to work on the WIP today, either. I can try, cuddled up with Needy Kitty in the bed, but I find trying to create when my brain is thoroughly distracted by not feeling well–and then there’s also the possibility that I might have to throw up suddenly and who wants to have that happen to their laptop? Yeah, maybe it’s better to post this and put the laptop back into its sleeve and be done with it.

Heavy heaving sigh.

But it’s getting really dark outside which means some kind of storm is almost here.

I think I’ll go lie down and finish reading my book.

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You Sexy Thing

I feel human this morning, which means I can go to work today! Hurray! Thank you, antibiotics and Claritin-D! Huzzah! Hurray!

It’s so lovely to feel normal (or at least what passes for it around here) again. The horrible thing about being sick is you can–or at least I do–often forget what it feels like to be healthy, and then wonder if you’re ever going to feel good again. My throat is still a little bit sore and my lungs still ache a bit from coughing so much, but other than that I am pretty damned good. So I can go to work today, do my half-day tomorrow, and then slide into the weekend. Ordinarily I’d take one more day off just to make sure I don’t relapse or something, but with the weekend so close…I think it’s okay to take the risk and go back to the office.

I just need to make sure I bring my Claritin with me–just in case.

But I also lost two days of productivity, and my mind was too foggy to even be able to focus on the book I am reading, Steph Cha’s wonderful Follow Her Home, which I hope to finish this weekend. I think next I am going to read my ARC of Alison Gaylin’s Never Look Back, and after that, possibly Kellye Garrett’s Hollywood Homicide.

There’s so much good reading in my future!

I am also appearing at the East Jefferson Parish library, talking about creating characters, with J. M. Redmann; the event is free and open to the public, and here’s the schedule:

Fifth Annual JPL               

Mystery Readers / Writers Literary Festival

METAIRIE – Five local authors will make presentations at the Fifth Annual Mystery Readers / Writers Literary Festival at 9:30 a.m., Saturday, April 13, at the East Bank Regional Library, 4747 W. Napoleon Ave., Metairie.

The festival is intended not just for mystery writers but for readers as well. This event is free of charge and open to the public. There is no registration.

9:30 to 10:45 a.m.

Farrah Rochon: “Using Psychology to Create Memorable Characters”

Farrah Rochon gives an interactive deep dive into creating characters using various methods rooted in psychology, including characterization with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Keirsey-Temperament Sorter, and how to apply them to fiction writing.

USA Today Bestselling author Farrah Rochon hails from a small town just west of New Orleans. She has garnered much acclaim for her Holmes Brothers, New York Sabers, Bayou Dreams and Moments in Maplesville series. The two-time RITA Award finalist has also been nominated for an Romance Times BookReviews Reviewers Choice Award, and in 2015 received the Emma Award for Author of the Year.

11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.

Jean Redmann and Greg Herren:

 The central character in a mystery oftentimes will be a detective who eventually solves the mystery by logical deduction from facts presented to the reader. Through the years, Redmann and Herren have created dozens of characters in their mysteries, and they explain how to create logical, believable, complex characters that readers will love.

J.M. Redmann writes two mystery series, one featuring New Orleans PI Micky Knight, and as R. Jean Reid, the Nell McGraw series, about a Gulf Coast town newspaper editor. Her books have won First Place Awards in the ForeWord mystery category, as well as several Lambda Literary awards.The Intersection of Law and Desire was an Editor’s Choice of the San Francisco Chronicle and a recommended book by Maureen Corrigan of NPR’s Fresh Air. Redmann is an at-large board member for Mystery Writers of America.

Greg Herren is the author of more than 30 novels and has edited more than 20 anthologies. He has won numerous awards, including the Anthony and Lambda Literary Award (twice). His short story collection Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories was released on April 1, and his next novel Royal Street Reveillon will be released this September.

12:30 to 1:45 p.m.

O’Neil De Noux: “The Femme Fatale”

The evolution of this female siren, the femme fatale, in detective literature has a distinct development from the early days of the victim in Poe to the deadly archetype seen in the Chandler and Hammett novels and film noir. O’Neil De Noux explains the femme fatale architype and how it is used today.

O’Neil De Noux is a New Orleans writer with 40 books published, 400 short story sales and a screenplay produced. He writes crime fiction, historical fiction, children’s fiction, mainstream fiction, science-fiction, suspense, fantasy, horror, western, literary, young adult, religious, romance, humor and erotica. His fiction has received several awards, including the Shamus Award for Best Short Story, the Derringer Award for Best Novelette and the2011 Police Book of the Year. Two of his stories have appeared in the Best American Mystery Stories anthology (2013 and 2007). He is a past vice president of the Private Eye Writers of America.

2 to 3:30 p.m.

Writing Seminar with Adrian van Young

Van Young will focus on a number of items: (a) basic methods of characterization in fiction, briefly; (b) building unlikeable, as well as likeable characters (crucial to mystery fiction and crime); and (c) how to establish narrative unreliability, which he says is important in mystery writing, and goes hand-in-hand with the likeable/unlikeable dichotomy. To demonstrate these principles, he will focus on a combination of writing exercises and excerpts from published works.

Adrian Van Young is the author of The Man Who Noticed Everything, a collection of stories, and Shadows in Summerland, a novel. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in publications such as Lumina, The Collagist, Black Warrior Review, Conjunctions, Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, Slate, VICE, The Believer, and The New Yorker online. He received a Henfield Foundation Prize and has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He teaches creative writing at Tulane, St. Martin’s Episcopal School and The New Orleans Writers Workshop.

For more information regarding this presentation, contact Chris Smith, Manager of Adult Programming for the library, at 504-889-8143 orwcsmith@jefferson.lib.la.us.

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

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Love Hurts

I detest being ill.

Sunday night I began to feel slightly off–more off than I’d been feeling since Friday, when the wretched bad weather rolled in–and I began to suspect that the weather was wreaking havoc with my sinuses which would lead to the inevitable sinus infection. Yesterday I didn’t feel great, and as soon as I got home from work last night I started taking antibiotics leftover from the last sinus infection, and woke up this morning feeling absolutely horrible.  I called in sick to work, have taken some more antibiotics this morning, and am hoping that when tomorrow dawns, the antibiotics will have done their job and cleared everything up for me.

One can hope, at any rate.

The Claritin also seems to be helping. I intend on spending the rest of the day retired to my bed, with Steph Cha’s Follow Her Home to keep me company. I managed to read another chapter and I am very impressed indeed with Ms. Cha. She writes in a very hard-boiled, noir style that is reminiscent of Chandler and Hammett–and she does pay homage to Chandler quite a bit in these opening chapters. Juniper Song is an interesting, complex character that I like quite a bit, and am looking forward to getting to know her better. This is also the first in a series, which means there’s more Juniper Song out there for me to read, savor, and enjoy, which is absolutely lovely.

Is there anything more satisfying than discovering a new author whose work you love?

I think not.

When I retire to my bedchamber later on this morning–as soon as I take care of some business here at my desk–I will be taking my Macbook Air with me, along with my novel, so that if the mood strikes me I can work on the WIP whilst ensconced in the comfort of my bed. I don’t remember the last time I spent the day lolling about in bed; I usually move to my easy chair with blankets and heating pads when I am unwell, but it sounds absolutely lovely, despite the pressure in my head and the constant draining and hacking up of phlegm from my lungs. I see chicken noodle soup in my future for lunch as well; it may not help cure what ails me, but it always makes me feel better.

Last night we got caught up on the most recent episodes of both Veep and Schitt’s Creek, both of which were terrific, before I retired to sleep. I slept pretty decently, given that I felt terrible when I went to bed, but this morning I am still feeling kind of worn out, which is no doubt due to the sinus issue. Yay?

So, there will be no spice-mining today, most likely. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader.

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I Write the Songs

Another good night’s sleep, with gloomy Sunday glaring at me through my kitchen windows. I wound up wasting most of yesterday–although organizing and filing and so forth doesn’t really seem like a hardship to me–and then last night there was some drama involving my phone again not being recognized by my computer, so yeah, there was that. So, I managed to get next to nothing done yesterday but relaxing and some little bit of my organizing, which means today I have to do a lot of it. Which is fine–I usually dread the morning of the day I pushed everything off to arriving; because nine times out of ten I will almost always feel just as lazy on the Sunday as I did on the Saturday.

It happens.

But I am not feeling quite so out of sorts–or lazy–this morning; which means I am going to start tearing through the to-do list once I finish this entry. I am determined to get my inbox emptied once and for all; I am going to get some work done, and I am going to finish the organizing and cleaning I started doing yesterday. I cleaned off and organized most of the stuff on the top of the kitchen cabinets–eighteen foot ceilings give you a lot of storage space on top of your kitchen cabinets, in case you were wondering–and while there is still stuff up there that should probably come down, I may leave that up for a while just yet…until I can figure out what to do with the stuff. I mean, I don’t want to give away my food processor, but the truth is I rarely, if ever, use it–maybe three times once I first got it and was impressed with the novelty of having one. Or my electric wok; again, used maybe once or twice. Again, a nice thing to have…but I never use it. Maybe I should store these things in the attic. I don’t know.

Yesterday afternoon (and early evening) we watched Venom and the remake/reboot/latest sequel in the Friday the 13th series–the 2009 version with Jared Padalecki of Supernatural in the starring role. Believe it or not, I’d never watched the original until a few years ago, when it became available on a streaming service, and while I can see why it was so enormously successful at the time and am willing to recognize it as a landmark film in the resurgence of horror cinema in the late 1970’s/early 1980’s, the production values are only slightly higher than that of a home movie of the time–which led me to think about how The Blair Witch Project, with similar production values and maybe a slightly higher budget, also revolutionized horror cinema and made a fortune. The reboot (or whatever it was, a sequel with no number, whatever) wasn’t a bad film, it just wasn’t a great film; it was perfectly adequate, but added nor removed anything from the canon or iconography and therefore just seemed like an attempt at a cash grab. Likewise, Venom, despite its impressive effects and being about one of my favorite Marvel characters…just didn’t fire on all cylinders for me and was actually kind of dull. And I love me some Tom Hardy; perhaps the problem was that giving Venom an origin story that doesn’t involve Peter Parker was a misfire…and Stan Lee’s cameo at the end of the film just made it sadder, knowing he’s now dead.

So, today I have to make a quick and easy grocery run, deal with my taxes once and for all, and want to finish revising some chapters of the WIP while also putting together the proposal for the suspense thriller I may want to write later in the year. I also want to read the next story in Murder-a-Go-Go’s and get started on Steph Cha’s Follow Her Home. I also have some other things I need to work on as well. And there’s always cleaning that needs to be done, and organizing. Always. I just have to make sure I don’t get into one of those oh I feel lazy and this can wait until another time moods, you know?

Which is, sadly, easier and easier to slip into these days.

But that cannot happen, I cannot keep letting things slide, so today is the day when I need to get it all together and get it all done.

Beginning with the goddamned emails.

And now, back to the spice mines.

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Fly Robin Fly

I was awakened about seven o’clock by the loudest crash of thunder I’ve heard since–well, since the last major thunderstorm rolled through Orleans Parish. There was a lot of thunder and rain for a while there–we’re supposed to  have severe weather all day, which is not pleasant for me, since I have to go to work and stop at Rouse’s on the way home…but it’s also a half-day for me, so there is that. This week seemed to simply fly past–but it also was only a four day week, and since I had Monday off it kind of felt like I was off by a day.

I kept thinking yesterday was Tuesday, for example.

But today is Thursday and I have things to get done before the end of the week, and as I said, I am feeling a little bit more myself these days. I started working on a proposal yesterday for a book idea I have; I’m probably going to work on another two of them this weekend, just for shits and giggles, while I work on the WIP. I have a lot of random thoughts about all three projects, all of which feel kind of amorphous, and that’s why I want to write the proposals–because it will force me to achieve some clarity about these manuscript ideas.

I’ve also discovered that part of the problem with my desktop computer has to do with a lack of RAM; I think the operating system update just kicked the problem into high gear. I did some on-line research yesterday about the problems I’ve been having, and have found some solutions that I am implementing. They seem to be working–the computer is operating a lot faster than it did, but it’s also probably going to take me most of the weekend to get it all done. But that’s okay; it’s certainly more than worth it to have an operational, functional computer again that isn’t driving me insane with the spinning wheel of death.

We finished watching Shrill finally last night, which was really excellent. It made me think–which is something I always enjoy when I watch or read something–as well as re-examine my own thoughts and attitudes. I’m not always the best person–hell, that’s most of the time, if I am going to be warts-and-all honest–and am always constantly amazed at how I sometimes take terrible things for granted as just the way things are and don’t question those terrible things; where did they come from, where did I learn it, and how quickly can I unlearn it. Shrill is a terrific show, and I encourage people to watch and learn from it.

Now Apocalypse is also a strange show, but oddly absorbing. There’s a lot of simulated sex and real nudity on the show–Paul said it was basically soft-core porn, which is true–and we’ll probably keep watching. I also want to get back to You.

And on that note, ’tis back to the spice mines on this rainy, horrific weather day. Happy Thursday, Constant Reader!

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Love is Alive

And so am I!

It’s Wednesday morning and it’s also pay day; which means I get to spend a goodly portion of my morning paying bills and watching my paycheck disappear. Huzzah! My desktop computer is currently updating its software–which, ever since the Great Data Disaster of 2018, always gives me a little pause. I do always hold out hope that every time this happens since then that perhaps, just perhaps, this update will fix the problems that I’ve been having with the Mohave operating system since it launched; which is enormously frustrating. It does, however, work beautifully in my Macbook Air, which makes me tend to think the issue is some software conflict within my system–which probably means I need to take the thing back into the store and have it looked at/worked on/possibly repaired…none of which things bode well, I have time or patience for, and could prove to be enormously frustrating in the meantime. But I do have the Air and this HP Stream, so I do have back-up computers just in case.  The Stream is good, but neither as fast, intuitive, or user-friendly as the Air; but it’s a good computer and I would recommend it to anyone looking for an inexpensive laptop.

I told a friend yesterday, and this is how I’ve been feeling, that I finally feel like my life is actually my life again; I’ve been feeling unsettled and not quite right ever since the Great Data Disaster–but the off-kilter actually began before that; the Great Data Disaster simply brought everything to the forefront. I am, as I get older, someone who draws comfort from routine; last October our long-time office on Frenchmen Street closed. I’d been working out of that office since 2005, and before that I volunteered there. The room that housed my actual office had been my office since 2010. We moved in October to our new building on Elysian Fields on the lakeside of Claiborne Avenue, which meant a whole new routine of getting to work and getting home from work. That was, I think, the first step out-of-place in my usual routine; I had to change everything and my weekly schedule of when I pick up the mail, etc. I was just getting adjusted to the changes when I left for Kentucky; then I came back to have to start over adjusting, and then the Great Data Disaster happened right around the holidays…and then came Carnival and the Weekend o’Festivals and the death of my old Air and yeah–it’s no wonder that I’ve felt off for months now.

This week is the first week I feel like me again, and it’s actually quite lovely.

But despite feeling like me again–and feeling like I can get everything done that I want to get done; that I can handle anything and yeah motherfuckers bring it the fuck on, I am a little scattered still this week. I think, actually, that paying the bills this morning might actually help in that regard. For one thing, it’s a short work week as I had Monday off to recover from the weekend and to try to put the house back together after TERMITE ARMAGEDDON; and that has me rather confused every day as to what day of the week it actually is. But I am going to persevere. I am going to make a to-do list and start getting through that. I am going to get back to work on the WIP so I can have a clean, strong first draft in hand by the end of April. I am going to get to all those emails in my inbox that have been reproaching me in silent judgment for weeks now. (Okay some of them have been there for months.) Paul’s home at night now (rather than coming in at midnight or later) and so we can get caught up on the shows we’re watching.

Oh, and the books I thought I’d lost? I found them. They were in a different pocket of my backpack. Seriously. I feel like an idiot–but at least the books were found before  I bought new copies–which would have sucked, utterly.

So, I feel like Gregalicious again, and it’s a terrific feeling.

With that in mind, I am heading back into the spice mines. Have a happy Hump Day, Constant Reader!

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Broken Hearted Me

So, in my desire to have a productive morning yesterday and rush home to start setting things to rights after Termite Armageddon, I thought I had a reading at one and a panel at two thirty; at nine am I thought  I can rush home, get started and then Lyft back to the Monteleone.

Then, while taking a break at eleven and thinking I’ll jump in the shower in a minute I checked the program to see who I was reading with and…my reading was at 11:30.

Heavy heaving sigh.

I think this might be the second or third time in twenty years of doing this that I’ve missed something I was supposed to do, so there’s that. Three times in twenty years isn’t bad, yet at the same time…oy oy oy.

Well, the good news was–lemons into lemonade– I had time to go make groceries and still had plenty of time to get cleaned up and Lyft down there for two thirty.

Heavy heaving sigh.

Hopefully, the next time the Weekend o’Festivals rolls around, we won’t be having to deal with a TERMITE ARGAMEDDON, so it won’t be as insane of a weekend. But the Lost Apartment feels very strange to be Scooter-and-Paul-free. When I get back I am going to continue cleaning and organizing, knowing that I can’t possibly get everything done that I want to get done. I think I need to take another stay-cation and clean the fuck out of this apartment, including cleaning out the cabinets (I found a lot of expired food stuffs yesterday morning that went into the trash) and I also need to check myself on the food hoarding thing. I mean, some of this stuff expired in 2015.

2015. Yeesh.

But, TERMITE ARMAGEDDON aside, it was a lovely weekend, as the Weekend o’Festivals tends to be. As always, I come away from it–despite everything–energized and excited to get back to writing again. I told a friend yesterday afternoon that I feel connected to myself again, in a way I hadn’t since the Great Data Disaster of 2018; I don’t know if it was being in the Quarter, or just being around writers and readers and people who love both, but it’s true. It kind of felt like a fog lifted, or I finally woke all the way up, if that makes sense? I have plenty to do this morning–I have to run to the office to get the stuff from our refrigerator that I stored there; I have to get Scooter; I need to get my brake tag and pick up some prescriptions and do another, minor grocery run and get the mail. I have some writing to do today for a website freelance project that is due today, and I would also like to work on the house some more and perhaps–perhaps–do some work on the WIP. I also bought some lovely books yesterday, but when I got home yesterday (I took the streetcar) I discovered my backpack had come open, and my copies of The Woman Who Fed the Dogs (Kirstien Hemmerechts), All Grown Up (Jami Attenburg) and King Zeno (Nathaniel Rich) had vanished at some point between the hotel and the Lost Apartment. Disappointing, but I can repurchase copies and hey, they get another royalty. But my copies of Frank Perez’ Southern Decadence in New Orleans, Jason Berry’s City of a Million Dreams: A History of New Orleans at Age 300, Constance Adler’s My Bayou: New Orleans Through The Eyes of a Lover, David Holly’s The Moon’s Deep Circle, Christopher Castellani’s Leading Men, and Once & Future by Amy Rose Capetta and Cori McCarthy, all made it home safely, and I clearly have some fabulous reading in my future. I am very excited about this.

And I am very excited about getting back to both the Diversity Project and the Short Story Project.

I also feel well rested this morning, and like I can conquer the world. It’s been awhile, but it’s lovely to have a Gregalicious feeling again.

And now back to the spice mines.

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