Category: New Orleans

Sugar Hiccup

Saturday morning and lots to do before hitting the road tomorrow. The lovely thing is it isn’t that much of a drive, about five and a half hours, and there’s a Whataburger in Tuscaloosa. Yay! I have The Drowning Tree by the amazing Carol Goodman queued up on my Audible app and ready to go once I hit the road. I have to make a grocery run today for Paul, and was thinking about dropping books off at the library sale, but I don’t know. It’s hot and the grocery thing is going to be exhausting enough as it is, and I have a lot to get done today. I was exhausted yesterday after work. The escape room thing was quite fun, and then we had lunch at Olive on Carondelet, a Middle Eastern place (sobs with joy! I got to have a gyro) and then I came home to work. The walk home was exhausting in the heat, and of course, I actually drifted off to sleep in my easy chair a bit. I got some more Alfred Hitchcock Presents books in the mail as well, and I started reading this delightfully creepy story I haven’t quite figured out yet, but the suspense and the build is sensational. We also watched the International Male catalog documentary (more on that later), and then I finished doing the laundry before going to bed, exhausted and ready to sleep for an eternity.

Despite the hideous heat yesterday, it actually wasn’t terribly humid and there was also a lovely cool breeze so the walk didn’t seem that dreadful, or at least not while I was doing it. The sun was merciless, though, and it was in the mid-nineties.I also marveled as I walked home a different way than usual–I took Camp Street to Prytania, rather than St. Charles–and I again marveled that not only do I live in New Orleans, but how quickly things change. I was also puzzling out some knots and final corrections I need to make to this manuscript before turning it in tomorrow–a walk is always lovely for things like that; even in the heat, and I need to remember that more often, quite frankly. I was also thinking, as I walked, about how I am always worried about repeating myself, or writing the same book again. It’s easy enough to do when you forget what you’ve already written and published, as I am wont to do at this stage. My editor’s notes were kind of amusing, in some ways, because one thing that he was pointing out was something that I always do–and something that I’ve noticed in the other two active manuscripts on hand–which is a tendency to name the characters with alliterative names. (For example, in the pro wrestling noir everyone, it seems, has a first name that begins with T) I also have a tendency to write hangover scenes, and car crashes. Now that I have this permanent brain fog or whatever it is that’s going on in my head since last summer, it’s even harder for me to remember past books that I’ve written; so I think I am going to have to start blogging about past books I’ve published so that I can remember them. I’ve done some of these posts before in the past, because I like to try to remember what was going on while I was writing the book; what I was trying to do with the book; how long had I had the idea for the book and where did it come from; what changed from the original idea during the process of writing it and what other influences got involved after getting started; and so on. I also like to think about the voice and the tone, how did I do with the setting and scene? What was I going for with the main character, and why? Facebook reminded me yesterday that at some point in the past twelve years the box o’books for The Orion Mask arrived on this date–and I just walked past the house that inspired a part of the book recently, and I was amazed yet again at how much detail I’d gotten wrong.

So, I decided to rent the documentary All Man: The International Male Story last night, for a multitude of reasons. Now that I’m in my sixties my former indifference to nostalgia has lessened (and I do tend to worry that I look back through rose-colored glasses, making the past seem better and more idyllic than it was; I have to always remember yes, but you were also a neurotic mess then, too), and so yes, there was a bit of a curiosity involved with my wanting to watch. I think I only ever bought one thing ever from International Male–a red pirate blouse, a fluffy shirt, if you will, and I got it to go as a pirate for Halloween–but I always got the catalogue, and I often liked their clothes…but was also always very consciously aware that to wear those clothes, you also had to look like their models; the lesson that beautiful people can wear anything and look good I’d learned early in life. I also had no fashion sense because I never was able to develop one–because men’s clothes were hideous, and there weren’t many options when I was growing up. I’ve also have a very mild case of color blindness with certain shades of certain colors–I can’t tell dark blue from black, for example–and I am never entirely sure what colors go with other ones. I do know that red, black and white all work together, so usually my dressier clothes are some combination or variation of those colors. But for the most part, I don’t care about what I wear and I don’t know what’s in style or not. I’m never sure if the clothes I am wearing match and/or look good on me, and I’ve stopped worrying about it. When I was younger, I used to deplore the fact that men’s clothes were so dull and boring. I love hats, for example, but men don’t really wear any hats other than baseball or cowboy anymore. I have some lovely hats, but never have any place to wear them. I have a marvelous fedora I bought in New York many years ago, but I never go anywhere here that I could wear it; it would be perfect for something like the Anthony Awards or something, but it has it’s own special box and that’s another item to take on the plane…so it just sits in its box in the closet. But I used to love the International Male catalogue, because the clothes, to me, looked kind of fun and cool. I’ve never been a cool or fun gay, and I’ve never been a fashion gay. But the International Male catalogues allowed me to escape into a world where I could wear something off one of its pages in a place that was exotic and exciting and fun. (I’ve also always kind of wanted a pith helmet. I had one in college and I loved it) So, it was interesting to watch how the business came to be, and how it really did kind of help change the way men dress and the way we look at men in more sexualized way now than we did when I was a kid. (I’m trying to remember things that resonated with me before I came out finally; that’s my current nostalgia kick) I do recommend it; it’s very well done and it’s kind of a nice story. The catalogue impacted a lot of gay teens in rural places in the 80’s and 90’s, and it should be remembered for that reason alone.

My first exposure to crime fiction short stories came in the Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthologies. My grandmother used to get the Dell paperbacks, and the stories always had a delightful little twist of some sort, always macabre. I’ve always remembered those anthologies, and recently went on an eBay binge of buying copies. Two more arrived yesterday, Alfred Hitchcock Presents My Favorites in Suspense and Alfred Hitchcock Presents Stories That Go Bump in the Night. I started reading a long story in My Favorites in Suspense, “Composition for Four Hands” by Hilda Lawrence, and it’s really quite good; the suspense and tension builds with every paragraph, and I’m still not entirely sure what’s going on in the story–but we have a bedridden woman who cannot speak, and she suspects some of the other people in the story might be wanting to kill her, but we don’t know who and we don’t know why; nor do we know yet how she ended up in this condition. The writing style is quite Gothic in tone, which of course I love, and I am hoping to finish reading the story this morning. I have quite a lot to get done today, but I did sleep marvelously and I feel very alive, rested and alert this morning. Good thing as I do have so much to do. I want to also watch the LSU game this evening (GEAUX TIGERS!) but will be on the road during the game tomorrow, alas.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a marvelous Saturday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow morning, if not later.

In Our Angelhood

LSU is in the finals of the College World Series! Woo-hoo! GEAUX TIGERS! And what a great game that was last night, for real. A pitcher’s duel with no runs until the bottom of the 11th; when Dylan Crews hit a base hit and Wake Forest brought in a relief pitcher—whose only pitch was a home run! Tigers win, 2-0! Apparently that pitcher had also said in a press conference “who can beat us?” Well, there’s your irony, bud–your answer was LSU! And yes, the Tiger fans are on track to double the old Rocco’s Bar jello shot challenge record. (It amazes me that this has made the news all over the country; the fact Louisianans love to drink is one of the reasons I’ve always loved it here, even though I really don’t drink much anymore myself. )

Today is a work-at-home Friday, but we have a team building exercise today and our team’s supervisor is taking us out to lunch afterwards. I have some errands to run at some point today, and am really looking forward to getting back home into the cool. Yesterday when I got off work and walked out to the car I thought, hey it’s still kind of unseasonably cool, I would have thought it would be miserable again already and when I started the car and looked at the dashboard, it was ninety-seven degrees! Amazing what a difference lower humidity can make to how hot it feels around here. I slept marvelously last night–I think I was emotionally worn out after the rollercoaster ride that was the LSU game last night (there was also one of the most amazing defensive plays I’ve ever see in baseball, when Tre Morgan saved the game by making a play to home base that tagged the runner at home with seconds to spare; it was as big a play as the home run that won it) and so had an easy time of falling asleep. I have to make a list of what all I need to get done before I leave on Sunday morning for Alabama.

But I feel rested this morning, and I am very glad. I’ll probably take a Lyft to the escape room (that’s what we’re doing for team building; I’ve never done one before so I am intrigued to experience something new) and then another one home; ordinarily I would just walk or take the streetcar, but it’s sooooo miserably hot that I don’t want the heat to leech all my energy and will out of me because I have things to do today. I got some more good work done on the book yesterday, and I am hoping to be able to get it finished either tonight or tomorrow. Once it’s done and I am back from Kentucky, I’ll probably go ahead and share the cover and post about the book, how it came to be and all of that. I’m going to need to get the apartment cleaned up some, the refrigerator cleaned out, and I need to make a grocery list for the week so I can get supplies put in for Paul before I leave–although he’ll probably just get salads from Rouse’s or Subway–and I also have some books to drop off at the library sale on Saturday.

Mmmm, my coffee tastes marvelous this morning. It always seems to taste better when I’ve slept well. I also think I am over whatever that bug is that I was dealing with earlier in the week. I took some DayQuil yesterday which alleviated the symptoms and once it wore off, the symptoms didn’t come back. I still am a bit congested so I’m not completely over it, but I feel a thousand times better than I did, which is a relief. There’s nothing worse than a long drive when you don’t feel well, you know. I also watched the American Pain documentary, about the horrible twin brothers who ran the country biggest pill mills and helped create the current opioid crisis (it’s also lovely that the one who has done his time and been released takes absolutely no responsibility for what he did–because their addiction is their own fault since he didn’t make them take the Oxy; they chose to do that themselves. Sure, bud, their doctors got them hooked and you made profits off their suffering, but you do you, sociopath. What a monster–both brothers are just utter and complete pieces of shit. Their case is also an example of how different justice is for white boys from an upper middle class family than it is for non-whites or whites from a lower social strata–they’d been getting in trouble with the law since they were kids and never got more than a slap on the wrist; there were never any consequences for their behavior so they turned into sociopaths. You just know if they were Black or from a trailer park they would have been sent to jail in their late teens and the key thrown away. But because they were rich white boys…no one wanted to ruin their futures.

Look how that turned out. Disgusting.

And on that note, I am going to make more coffee and head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you later.

In the Gold Dust Rush

Hoping to get another “adult content” warning on Twitter with today’s post picture. I’ve been getting them a lot lately; trying to figure out what precisely sets off the prudish bigoted algorithm? I’ve certainly enjoyed being told by Twitter services that derogatory slurs aren’t a violation of their new Musk-like terms of service. Twitter was always a shitshow, but while it did raise my blood pressure on occasion for the most part I enjoyed engaging with friends on there; but since the Muscadine takeover, it’s not even fun to use for the sake of simple entertainment. I am really curious how people think he’s some kind of genius businessman. Dudes, he inherited a fucking emerald mine. GENIUS.

Honestly.

But it’s Wednesday and Pay the Bills Day again; always a joy and pleasure. But at least I can pay them, as I always like to remind myself when the horror of paying the bills rolls around every two weeks. I am hoping to get further caught up on paying the bills down (or off, what a precious dream that is!) this summer; I’m getting my teeth fixed in September and that’s not going to be free or cheap, and you don’t even want to know how much my hearing aids are going to cost. So, paying down the debt is very important because I am about to be taking on a lot more of it, alas. But I am happy to get my mouth taken care of, and hearing…well, it can wait a little longer because I am not entirely sure not being able to hear 100% is necessarily a bad thing anymore. I haven’t slept well this week, and feel tired and achy this morning. I still have this bug or whatever it is that Paul gave me over the weekend, but now that I’ve been awake awhile I am feeling somewhat better than I did when I first arose from the shallow depths of Morpheus this morning. I hate waking up and spending the first few moments out of bed coughing and gagging, but…I do feel better now. Just tired and achy a bit this morning. The COVID test yesterday was negative, thank you, baby Jesus, so whatever this is, probably has something to do with summer cold/heat wave/barometric pressure fucking with my sinuses.

LSU won again last night, beating Tennessee, but now in order to stay in the College World Series they have to beat Wake Forest twice, since they lost to them the other night. The score was 3-2, so it was close and LSU led most of the game, so there’s a chance they can do it. It’s really now just a matter of seeing who Florida is going to play for the championship, either LSU or Wake Forest. Gah.

I got some more work done yesterday on the book–I need to get a lot more done, as I am way behind now–but I am thinking I can iron these thorny problems out mostly today, and thus get it turned in. Obviously, I wanted to get it in already but being sick and not sleeping isn’t helping. Hopefully tonight I’ll be so exhausted that I’ll have a lovely nice deep sleep tonight. One can hope, anyway. We finished watching the 100 Years of Warner Brothers documentary last night–I still think cramming the first fifty or sixty years of the studio’s history into one episode (which didn’t even mention Joan Crawford!) was a mistake, but it was also produced in house for HBO MAX, so…it’s a fluffy promo piece. We then watched the third season premiere of The Righteous Gemstones, which was okay, and this week’s episode of Platonic, which is one of the funniest shows currently airing. I am really becoming a very big fan of Rose Byrne, who is excellent in everything she does and can play a wide range of characters and styles and is perfectly at home in any of them.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I will check in on you again tomorrow.

YMCA

Ah, the Young Men’s Christian Association.

One of my favorite things about homophobic straight people is how clueless they are (the homophobia is really a tipoff) when it comes to queer stuff. (In fairness, if they don’t know any queer people why would they know anything about queer stuff?) Nothing amuses me more than watching crowds of straight people–whether it’s a sporting event, wedding, or a party– start doing the “YMCA” dance when the deejay puts it on. It’s particularly funny to me when it’s a sporting event, particularly something more on the unenlightened side with their fan base when it comes to queer equality, like NASCAR or hockey (although NASCAR had been doing rainbow stuff all month…). As I watch them all stand up and do the ‘YMCA dance”–always out of rhythm, never to the beat–I smirk to myself and think, you clearly don’t know that this song is about the sexual smorgasbord a YMCA was back in the day for gay men, do you? It’s about GAY SEX, homophobes! You’re singing along to a song about getting fucked at the Y!

It always makes me laugh. Every. Single. Fucking. Time.

I’m sure the founders of the YMCA system would have been quite nonplussed to know that in some major cities, gay men turned YMCA’s into essentially bath houses. There were a couple in Manhattan that were notorious for hook-ups, but of course a YMCA would draw gay men. For a long time they were the only places for men to go and get exercise, unless they belonged to a men’s club, like the New Orleans Athletic Club (which used to be for men only), and since gay men, especially after Stonewall, liked to be fit and keep their bodies worked out and in good shape (to draw lovers, of course) they wound up at the Y. And when you get a bunch of gay men thrown together in an environment that includes pools, weights, saunas, steam rooms and showers, you’re going to get hook ups. YMCA’s also provided cheap rooming alternatives, too–and of course, that meant that you could get a room at the Y (just like you could at a bath house) which meant you could bring partners back to the room for sex.

When we first moved to New Orleans there was still a Y at Lee Circle (now Harmony Circle); the Lee Circle Y had been there forever and was actually kind of historic; one of the Israeli athletes murdered at the Munich Olympics was a Tulane student who worked out at the Y. I thought that should at least have some kind of commemorative memorial plaque–and had preservation-minded folk cared about the Lee Circle Y, it could have been declared a historic landmark, instead of closing and the land being sold for yet another hotel. Maybe a murdered Israeli athlete isn’t enough of a connection for historical landmark status. But I used to train people there, and also taught aerobics until it was closed permanently. They had redone the weight room and bought all new equipment a few years earlier, too. Some things–like the locker room and so forth–were musty and moldy smelling, with that distinct stench of decades of male sweat baked into the walls.

But yes, the Village People of “YMCA” fame–every one of them was dressed as a particular gay archetype (leather man, Indian chief, fireman, cop, etc.) and all of their songs were thinly veiled odes to the joys of being gay and having lots of no-strings-attached sex; “Macho Man,” “In the Navy,” “YMCA,” “San Francisco”–and the village in their name was Greenwich Village, the gayborhood in Manhattan. (The promotional video for “YMCA”–taken mostly from the movie Can’t Stop the Music–which is a topic for another time, because yes, that movie needs discussion–really says it all.)

There were bath houses, of course (Bette Midler famously got her big break performing at the Continental Baths in Manhattan); New Orleans had two when we first moved here–the Club New Orleans in the Quarter on Toulouse Street and Midtown Spa on Baronne in the CBD, across from where the Rouse’s is now. Both are long gone now, ain’t dere no more as we say down here. We used to do testing in the bath houses, which was always a weird experience. Every room had a television with porn on a loop; the room they used to let us at CNO to test in also was the sling room. So I’d sit on the bed/cot, with porn playing on the television hanging from the ceiling in the corner, and a sling in the opposite corner from the television. I bet that sling could tell some tales….or could have before it was consigned to the dustbin of history.

I also remember the battle over closing bath houses during the height of HIV/AIDS. Rewatching It’s a Sin reminded me of a lot of the struggles back when the disease was new and we didn’t know much about it other than almost everyone who got infected died. It seems kind of counter-intuitive now, but there was an argument that could be made that restricting gay sexuality was also a repressive attempt to push gays back into the closet as well as further stigmatizing gay men. It seems silly now, of course, knowing what we know now, but the mask argument during the pandemic kind of took me back to the struggle to get gay men to wear condoms. (I’m so old I remember when herpes had everyone freaking out in the late 1970s.)

I keep thinking I should write about the Lee Circle Y, just to preserve that piece of New Orleans history. “Never Kiss a Stranger” originally started with my main character getting off a Greyhound bus and lugging his duffel bag down Howard Avenue to the Lee Circle Y, where he gets a room while looking for a place to live. (I later realized the story actually begins with him finding that place to live; the rest is just filler and not very interesting.)

Maybe someday.

Five Ten Fiftyfold

Tuesday and back to the office with me today blog.

Yesterday was a bit of an off day for me; I didn’t feel good for most of the day. Paul’s been sick since Thursday–coughing, lots of congestion and post nasal drip–to how crappy I felt yesterday was at least not as bad as he was at his worst; and this morning I feel fine. Not sure if it was some twenty-four hour thing, but hope that feeling better lasts through the rest of the day. We had some amazing thunderstorms last night while I was sleeping; it’s kind of gray and icky looking outside right now. The forecast is the usual–hot, humid, chance of thunderstorm–so I’m hoping my sinuses remain under control for the rest of the day as well.

Yesterday morning I finished reading Chris Clarkson’s delightful That Summer Night on Frenchmen Street, which I really enjoyed, and have selected Megan Abbott’s Beware the Woman as my next read. I’m not sure when I’m going to have the time to actually spend reading it thoroughly and enjoying it–probably will go with me to Kentucky as my “before I go to sleep” read. LSU lost a heartbreaker to Wake Forest yesterday 3-2, so now have to fight their way back out of the losers’ bracket if they want to win the College World Series. Hope springs eternal for an LSU fan–we did break the Jello Shot Record at Rocco’s yesterday–but I’m just delighted they made it to the World Series this year. GEAUX TIGERS!

I have some more work to do on this manuscript before I turn it in. This is the revising/fixing phase of the edits; where I have to do the more macro things. I had hoped to get this done yesterday but I wasn’t feeling well, and as such couldn’t really focus the way I needed to–I did try, of course–so tonight after I run my errands on the way home from work (there’s always something, really) I hope to sit down and bang out the rest of this to get it finished and out of my hair and out of my way. We started watching a documentary series about the history of Warner Brothers last night, which is always fun; I always like learning more about Hollywood history. The documentary didn’t really provide me with anything new or insightful about the history of the studio, other than further confirmation that Jack Warner was an asshole. There are two more parts, so that takes care of our television watching needs for this evening, at the very least. I figure with show episodes dropping this week and me being gone next week will help our shows build up back episodes to watch.

It’s also weird that it’s Tuesday already. I feel like I am going to be off this entire week because of it, then I’m out of the office for a week, and then I come back to the abbreviated 4th of July holiday week. As much as I love having extra time off, it’s always a weird week when the work week is truncated this way; I always feel kind of somehow off my game no matter what. But it’s a short week, I’m off next, and I need to get organized. I need a to-do list, most importantly, and to figure out where I’m at with everything. I always have this tendency to be as laser-focused as someone with (undiagnosed) ADHD can be; which means the book is the biggest priority and everything else is an incredible inconvenience that I don’t pay much attention to other than the occasional yeah yeah I know I need to work on you, but give me a minute.

Despite not feeling well yesterday–I also was feverish most of the day–I was able to get chores done around the house so it looks a little neater and a little less fraternity dorm room. I do want to drop books off for the library sale this coming weekend before leaving town, and I also want to get the car washed and cleaned out–chores for Saturday! Huzzah! I think we’re doing an escape room team bonding thing on Friday morning and then having lunch, then I can go home and do data entry–woo-hoo! It doesn’t get much more exciting than that, does it? And then of course Sunday it’s up to Alabama to meet Dad. I had a bad day one day last week about Mom; when the grief came back and I wasn’t able to reason or breathe or mind-clear my way out of it, so I just gave in and had a nice, good cry for a few minutes, and then I was able to get moving again. It’s been four months since we lost Mom, and I don’t think it’s something I’ll ever get used to but rather something I will gradually just be able to live with. I don’t think any of us can expect more than that, really.

And on that note I am heading out in the thick heavy air of a hot summer day in June. I’ll catch you later, Constant Reader; hope you have a lovely day.

Southern Nights

I have a confession to make that is more than a little shameful. You see, I occasionally write books that are classified as “young adult fiction” because the protagonists are young; usually high school students, sometimes college. The shameful confession is that I write and publish young adult fiction without reading very much of it. Most of my reading time is devoted to crime novels for adults, the occasional horror novel, lots of history and non-fiction, and the occasional short story. My biggest influences on my y/a are Christopher Pike, R. L. Stine, and Jay Bennett (there will be much more on him at another time); and sometimes I do manage to slide a young adult crime novel into my TBR stack. But outside of crime and/or horror? I don’t read any y/a that can’t be classified as either of those genres.

I’ve also not had the pleasure of reading a great deal of young adult fiction set in New Orleans. The one thing I’ve not actually done–despite writing a lot about New Orleans and a lot of young adult novels–is write a young adult novel set in New Orleans. I read one about a decade ago that I simply loathed; it was a ghost story set around Lafayette #1 in the Garden District, and it just didn’t click with me. I kept thinking the whole time I was reading it, this could have been so much better. It’s not like I don’t have any ideas for young adult fiction set here; I’ve any number of those ideas sitting in my files–everything from Maid of New Orleans to Daughters of Bast, among others–but I think I am resistant to writing New Orleans-based y/a because I didn’t grow up here. It’s hard enough to have Scotty reminiscing about his days at Jesuit High School when I didn’t go there, let alone writing an entire book about a teenager in New Orleans.

So, imagine my delight this past year at Saints and Sinners when I discovered that one of my co-panelists on the y/a panel was a local named Chris Clarkson who’d just published his first young adult novel set in New Orleans. Naturally, I got a copy–I really liked him, and I owe him a text message–and have really looking forward to digging into it.

Constant Reader, it did not disappoint. And it’s neither crime nor horror.

I absolutely loved it.

Solange’s snakeskin pumps were abandoned by the door, one standing proud, and the other playing possum on its side. Beside her, crumpled in a heap of lavender and lace, was the dress we shopped for on Magazine Street last week. The dress she had been so thrilled to find.

“Excuse me, ma’am. You sashayed in here serving body and hair teased to the gods. Why did you change? I demand an encore! Body. Dress. Wig. Grace.” I pointed at the sad taupe button-down shirt she was wearing. “Put your high heels back on and act like you got some common sense.”

Solange wiped at her tears. “Jess, I’m not in the mood to fool with you.”

“Good, I’m not in the mood to fool with you either.” I sank down on the floor beside her. She sniffed and wiped at her nose. “Why’d you change?”

That Summer Night on Frenchmen Street is, of all things for me to read, a romance–on several different levels. Our two main point of view characters are Tennessee and Jessamine–great names for a couple, don’t you think–and they initially are in the same orbit because they are both having meals at Commander’s Palace when the book opens. Tennessee’s full name is Tennessee Rebel Williams, and he’s a child of wealth and privilege from Oxford, Mississippi. His dad is an alcoholic douchebag and his mother is a narcissistic author. The marriage is a non-stop battle royal, with Tennessee doing most of the suffering. His mother has decided she needs to move to New Orleans to finish her next book, and she brought Tennessee with her; they have a big house on St. Charles Avenue, and he’s enrolled in Magnolia Prep–the rich kids’ private school in the book. Tennessee also wants to be a writer but he’s also a bit adrift; getting ready for college but still not mature enough or strong enough to stand up to his awful parents.

Jessamine is a native New Orleanian with a twin brother and a deceased father. Jessamine also has some issues from her own past that are troubling her, making her behave in self-destructive patterns that could affect her future and college choices. She feels drawn to Tennessee–their developing relationship is one of the strongest parts of the book itself–but cannot commit. She cares about him but keeps him at arm’s length because she’s afraid she’ll just end up hurting him. As the story progresses, we slowly become aware that Jessamine suffered a horrific trauma as a child, one that she’s never really confronted or dealt with, and that trauma is the key to her self-destructive behavior. Her twin brother, Joel, is gay but not out yet; he’s not really sure who he is and what his sexuality is, which causes trouble for him and his love interest, a wealthy young Black kid named Saint Baptiste (who deserves a book of his own, really) goes to school with Tennessee and becomes one of his best friends–since they are falling for twins, how could they not?

There’s also a fantastic trans character, Joel and Jessamine’s cousin Solange–who also deserves her own book–that I couldn’t get enough of, either. Clarkson also does an excellent job of exploring–even if casually–the generational divide between the teens and their parents, through Solange’s tradition; the elders still dead name her, and the teens are always pleased whenever one of the older generation gets Solange’s gender and pronouns correct.

All the main characters, despite their faults and flaws and past traumas, are completely likable and people you can’t hope but root for; you want their love to conquer all, get their lives settled, and grow from their traumatic pasts. It was fun seeing New Orleans through teenaged eyes; I’ve always wondered what it would be like to grow up here, where New Orleans is your default to normality.

Highly recommended, and one of my favorite books set in New Orleans.

The Hollow Men

Sunday and the midpoint of the holiday weekend, as New Orleans swelters in what is, even for here, an unusually potent June heat wave. I stayed inside as much as I could yesterday, in the marvelous cool of the Lost Apartment. I slept well Friday night, which was great, and while I wasn’t feeling especially motivated yesterday morning, I did get my daily blog entry done as well as a Pride post. I read more of That Summer Night on Frenchmen Street, which is just absolutely charming (you should get a copy, Constant Reader), and then I did some more cleaning chores around the house before digging into the edits of this manuscript. I got the macro edit along with the copy edit, so I can get it all worked through, hopefully this weekend; I would love to be able to get this to the editor on Monday. We shall see how it goes. I did get some progress made yesterday; we’ll see how things go today. Yesterday was kind of nice, actually. I got some rest, too–today I feel really rested–and we finished watching Butchers of the Bayou, got caught up on The Crowded Room, and started watching City on Fire, which…is interesting, but I guess we’re supposed to believe Manhattan is an incredibly small town? It’s based on an “it” book from a couple of years ago that I never read; I had a copy but eventually donated it in one of my many purges. I’m not sure we’ll continue watching, to be honest; it’s okay but not riveting. There was no disappointment last night when I called the evening after a couple of episodes.

LSU won their game yesterday at the College World Series (GEAUX TIGERS!). We watched part of the game before switching over to The Crowded Room once I was sure the Tigers had the game under control. I have to say, it’s very fun living in Louisiana and being a sports fan. I of course always will root for any team based in Louisiana, with the Saints and LSU having my deepest loyalties, but part of the fun is how different Louisiana sports fans are from fans in other parts of the country. Tiger Stadium and the Superdome can get loud enough that it hurts your ears, but the thing I love the most about Louisiana sports fans is that they are also fans when it’s not easy, if that makes sense? It’s why Saints players become so attached to New Orleans; we’ll turn out to welcome them home from away games at the airport even when they lose. When the Saints were in the Super Bowl, the city of New Orleans decided to have a Saints parade that Tuesday night before the second weekend of Carnival, where they won or lost; a celebration if they won and a thank you for a great season and making it to the Super Bowl if they lost. Maybe the turn out for that parade might not have been quite the mob scene it was had they not won, but I like to think that it would have been pretty close to the same thing. I also love all the stories about how Omaha (which we’re calling Eauxmaha the way we always Louisiana-ize everything) loves our fans and hope we make it to the College World Series every year. There’s a bar in Omaha that has a shots contest for all the fans of the teams there–LSU is of course way out in front of second place, and at one point you could combine the other seven schools and LSU still won. It also reminds me of how when LSU played Oklahoma in the 2019 college football play-offs in Atlanta, a lot of the bars around the hotels and stadium ran out of beer and bourbon the first night (this was NOT a problem when LSU played in New Orleans for the national championship; New Orleans never runs out because we’re Louisiana too). I also imagine that the servers and bartenders must make a ton of money in tips from LSU fans, who are also as generous as they are friendly. (I was also thinking the other day as I rewatched highlights of this past year’s LSU-Alabama game, what a night for recruiting that must have been! As a high school football player, visiting Tiger Stadium on a night like that, when the entire stadium was rocking (the stadium’s reactions to the over time touchdown and the two point conversion both registered on the campus Richter machine), how could you not sign with LSU? I’m trying not to get overly optimistic for football season, but LSU and the Saints (and Tulane, even) are poised to have great seasons.

Fingers crossed!

It looks kind of hazy outside the windows this morning. The heat advisory/heat wave is supposed to last until Tuesday; I’ve not checked the weather yet this morning to see how bad today is going to be. AH, yes, heat advisory, partly cloudy, and the potential for a severe thunderstorm later this afternoon. I was hoping to barbecue today, so here’s hoping the thunderstorm either holds off until I do or is over before I want to. I’m not going to run errands until after work on Tuesday, on my way home from the office. We have plenty of stuff on hand to eat without me having to go to the store, and I’m not going to be getting a lot when I do make a grocery run because I will be out of the house all next week. The reason I am coming back on the following Saturday is so that I can do a grocery run before heading to work on Monday.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday of your holiday weekend, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back before you know it.

Speak No Evil

Well, if there was any doubt left, summer has returned in full force to New Orleans. It’s a heat wave; in which the heat index has been over 110 for several days. When I ran my errands yesterday I was completely exhausted after getting back home and the groceries inside; this kind of heat saps your strength and your energy and sometimes, even your will to live. Opening the apartment door was like opening a preheated oven. I managed to get all my work-at-home duties taken care of, but tried to spend the rest of the day battling feeling tired and getting chores done. This is a three-day weekend, and I have a lot of work to try to get through over the course of this holiday weekend. I am also hoping to not set foot outside at any time until I have to go back to work Tuesday morning. It’s nice having another short work week, and then of course the next week I am heading north to spend some time with Dad. It’s hard to believe this year is nearly half over, isn’t it?

I was thinking yesterday that Elmore Leonard’s most famous piece of writing advice was “never start with the weather,” which is a “rule” that I break all the fucking time. The weather, especially in New Orleans, is almost a character here; it tells you everything you need to know about the time of year the story is set, for one thing. You can’t set a book or story in New Orleans in the summer time and not mention the weather; you just can’t. The weather impacts everything here, because we have what I lovingly and sort-of-jokingly refer to as “aggressive.” The heat and humidity is aggressive; hurricanes and thunderstorms here certainly are, and even the cold spells we get every winter (brief, always brief) can be also considered aggressive. It impacts people’s moods and what happens, really; so that advice cannot be followed when writing about New Orleans. I was primarily thinking about this yesterday when I was out in the heat and losing my will to live, mostly, which was completely understandable. Paul walked to the gym to ride the bike for a while yesterday and went through two bottles of water. So, yes, the weather here is aggressive and oppressive, and impacts story and character and setting and scene and place in New Orleans.

We started watching an ID true crime documentary series about the serial killers in Baton Rouge around the turn of the century and just after, Butchers on the Bayou, which is kind of interesting. I remember when it was happening–yes, a serial killer in Baton Rouge will make the news in New Orleans–and I remember when the first one was caught; I didn’t remember there was a second one operating at the same time. No wonder the police were overwhelmed; especially with all the crossing of jurisdictions and so forth–it’s the same problem they had with trying to solve the murders of the Jeff Davis Eight (eight women murdered over a several year period in Jefferson Davis Parish). And yes, I do at some point want to base a novel on the Jeff Davis Eight case; I keep thinking it fits more as a Chanse story but I’m not really sure I want to write another Chanse book. It wouldn’t really work as a Scotty story, and I have wondered and considered writing a new series–I have a character, Jerry Channing, who writes true crime and is a gay man that has appeared in several different books of mine; the problem with Jerry was when I was fleshing him out I realized what I was doing was combining Chanse and Scotty into a single person, and that wasn’t working for me. This also probably had something to do with me trying to come up with something whilst I was immersed in numerous other projects and not really being able to give it my full attention. I still might just go ahead and do it once I have all these current projects off my plate once and for all.

It is a good story, and it makes sense for him to be the one to investigate it–since he writes true crime. My primary concern about this is, obviously, there’s tons of novels about true crime podcasts and true crime writers and bloggers–Only Murders in the Building, anyone?–but it does make sense and works better. I guess there’s naught to do but give it a try and see.

I’m hoping to be able to spend some time reading this morning, too, before i head into the spice mines. I want to finish writing this and maybe write another Pride post over the course of the weekend; I’ve started several, but am trying to decide if I want to be Angry or if I want to be up-lifting. Some of the posts are angry–it’s hard to write about homophobia you’ve experienced without getting angry; and in one of them I am calling out homophobia I’ve personally experienced from the mainstream crime community. Sometimes I wonder if I should call this stuff out; there’s a part of me that sees talking about it and calling it out as vengeful–like ha ha ha, you were awful to me so now I am calling you out years later–and there’s a part of me that worries that I’ll come across as self-serving. (There’s nothing I hate more than the narcissistic activist; those who are only in it for themselves and don’t care about the broader picture and the macro.) I’ve known and seen some of this over the years more times than I’d care to–like the author who was all over #ownvoices, until she won a major award and now no longer mentions it at all, or “we need diverse books”–so, now that you’ve made it the work no longer needs to be done? Way to pull up the ladder behind you, sister! I certainly don’t want anyone to think that my primary concern is revenge or for me to become more successful; my mentality is “this happened to me and I don’t want it to happen to anyone else because it really sucked for me.” But times have changed, and while there are still instances of it that pop up from time to time within the community, it’s becoming a thing of the past and people are starting to call it out when they see it–which is a huge switch from when I was first getting started. The crime fiction community is a lot more welcoming to queer people in 2023 than it was in 2002. It’s lovely, of course, but I do think we should never forget our less progressive past–particularly since it wasn’t that fucking long ago.

Some things for me to ponder, I suppose.

And on that note, I am going to drink some more coffee and do some chores around the kitchen before I read for a bit and then work. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again at some point.

Grail Overfloweth

Work-at-home Friday morning, and I have some errands to do in a moment before I do my work-at-home duties. Or maybe I’ll do it later…wait, it’s summer again, so earlier is better but not by much in New Orleans. I was very tired when I got home last night from work–not sure why; I think the heat and humidity sapped my energy on my way into the house from the car (seriously, that’s all it takes) but I did get some of the laundry going. I slept really well last night, which was marvelous, despite waking up before seven yet again. I stayed in bed for a while though, just relaxing and luxuriating in the comfort until I decided that coffee was sounding good and it was time for me to get up. But now I am awake, sipping said coffee, and really looking forward to my three-day weekend. I have to revise a manuscript (as always) but that’s it; and I don’t think this is going to be as hard as the last one. Maybe I’m deluding myself, but whatever works. I’m not dreading it at all, which is a significant change from the past.

We watched The Other Two–this season’s not quite as good as previous–and another episode of The Crowded Room. I think I’ve already figured out what’s going on, two episodes in, but it’s a slow burn show; and it’s not easy to figure out what is going on. It’s extremely well cast, and everything about the show is top notch, but the story itself is being played out a little too slowly? Maybe the pacing will pick up as the show goes, but I worry–as we have noted with other series; the need to fill out eight or ten episodes often leads to a lot of filler and sidetracked episodes that don’t advance the story. That’s a story-telling problem fairly unique to the streaming services–sometimes shorter is better. Not everything needs to be eight or ten episodes long. Tom Holland is really good in this–I think he’s a much better actor than given credit for; but playing a Marvel super-hero stacks the odds against him (although I think he does a good job playing Peter Parker) when it comes to praise for acting and awards. (I thought he was brilliant in Cherry, but no nominations for anything.)

My desk area is a mess and so is this kitchen, so I’m probably going to spend a little time cleaning up around here after finishing this. I am my mother’s son, after all, and now that I have gotten some of the authorial pressure off me, maybe I can spend some more time cleaning up this place and reading and relaxing and so on. I really want to finish the book I’m reading, and I have some absolutely amazing ones on deck to get to–with even more coming out the rest of the summer. I will never get caught up on my reading, will I? Ah, well. I can listen to Carol Goodman on my drive up north in a couple of weeks, and on the way home, too. I’ve not taken an entire week off in a very long time, so that, too, is going to be weird. I am going up to meet Dad in Alabama for their anniversary, and then we’ll convoy back up to Kentucky. I should be able to finish a Carol Goodman on the way up as well as one on the way back.

God, and football season is looming again. What kind of season with the Saints and LSU have? There seems to be a lot of excitement around our new quarterback, Derek Carr (a fellow alum of Fresno State), so there’s no telling. There’s also a lot of expectation for LSU this season, after their remarkable turnaround last year under first year coach Brian Kelly; I’m going to not over-anticipate so as not to be horribly disappointed. Can LSU beat Alabama two years in a row? That’s a feat that only two coaches have accomplished in consecutive seasons–Les Miles at LSU (2010-2011) and Hugh Freeze at Mississippi (2014-2015). Freeze is now the Auburn head coach, and in 2024 Texas and Oklahoma join the SEC (LSU plays host to Oklahoma that year, I think; while Alabama goes to Norman and also gets to host Georgia). College football has changed so dramatically from when I was a kid…I of course remember when the SEC was merely ten teams, before Arkansas and South Carolina were added to make twelve, and Texas A&M and Missouri were added to make fourteen in 2011. It’ll be an entertaining season, to say the least. (In 2024, LSU also goes to play USC in Los Angeles, and UCLA comes to Baton Rouge. LSU doesn’t have an easy schedule that season…)

Okay, time to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday before the holiday weekend, Constant Reader, and I’ll most likely be back again at some point soon.

Wax and Wane

Thursday and last day in the office for the week. I was very tired yesterday, despite not working on Tuesday, and so when I got home I didn’t do a whole lot of anything. No chores, nothing of that sort. I didn’t even read anything! The heat and humidity have returned and it was so miserable when I went out to the car after work yesterday that I felt drained by the time I got into the coolness of the Lost Apartment. I slept decently last night–not great, but restful, waking up a couple of times throughout the evening, but I feel a bit groggy this morning, which is also fine. I think we have a fairly light schedule today at the office and I have some other things I need to get done around seeing my clients. But I’ve almost made it through another week, survived it all, and now we’re at another three-day weekend, which is lovely. I have a lot of work to get done around here this weekend, so the extra day is going to be super great to have.

I need to get caught up on my emails–which won’t take nearly as long as it used to, because I don’t get nearly as much as I once did, which is kind of nice. It’s not that I consider email to be an odious chore or anything, and it’s not like I get problem emails anymore (thank God; I no longer cringe and cower and have to steel myself before pulling up my email), but there’s also not as much urgency with them anymore, either. The decline in the amount as well as the not-quite-as-urgent sensibility of it has resulted in my being pretty lazy about it. (My email provider also recently changed a lot, which is irritating because I don’t like the way it looks now and it wasn’t an improvement to make it easier to use; the Spotify app on my phone recently did the same thing. The lovely thing about technology is the constant need to have to relearn how to fucking use it. That was sarcasm font, by the way.)

So, rather than being my usual lazy self and wasting time finding things on Youtube (primarily to see if they are there), lately as I sit in the easy chair with a purring kitty in my lap I’ve been trying to do some research, that hopefully will stick in my head. Mostly I’ve been looking up videos about the HUAC and Confidential magazine in the 1950s, among other things for that period–also beefcake and peplum–as research for Chlorine. I’m also digging into the 1970’s–mostly music and pop culture, along with historical stuff from the decade–because I want to write a book called The Summer of Lost Boys, which has been simmering in my head since the earliest days of the pandemic. I’m leaning towards setting it in 1975–the summer I turned fourteen and started my sophomore year of high school. It has some potential I think, and while the idea is still amorphous up there in the clouds in my brain, I really like the idea and think it could be a really good book…but I really want to get these two noirs done in first draft this summer. If the heat and humidity doesn’t wear me down too much, I should be able to get both drafts finished by the end of summer.

Unless I get lazy, which is always a possibility. The heat seriously doesn’t help, either. But the thing I always forget is the best thing to do when you get home from work in New Orleans in the summer is take another shower and get cleaned up. I sleep better and I feel better and it generally results in me being a lot more productive. I need to do laundry tonight, put away dishes, and reload the dishwasher, and I am going to start rereading this book that I am about to revise per my editorial letter (I still will be getting one for Mississippi River Mischief, too) and I want to finish reading my book, which I’ve stalled out on now for a couple of weeks…but I need to finish it if I want to move on to my AMAZING TBR pile. I have some errands to run tomorrow morning, too, before starting in on my work-at-home duties, and after that–I am hoping to not leave the house again until Tuesday when I return to work. It would be nice to get some more de-cluttering done this weekend, but I also want to relax, write, and read a lot.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. May you have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I will see you again tomorrow.