Category: New Orleans

Fading Fast

Today’s title is an insanely accurate description of my memory; which has been fading faster and faster the older I get, which is endlessly annoying. I mean, it’s bad enough that my body has been endlessly betraying me more and more the older I get, but does my brain have to do it as well? Heavy heaving sigh. Granted, it’s not like I haven’t had reasons for my brain to stop functioning properly in the case of memory; we did have the trauma of a global pandemic on top of everything else that has been going on in the last few years, and of course, I’ve been stressed about Mom for the last three or four or five years or whenever all of her health issues began. I am slowly coming out of the funk, I think–I do think this every morning and then some time in the afternoon it hits me like a 2 x 4 between the eyes–and I need to reenter the world. I am going back to the office tomorrow for the first time in like well over a week, which has also been incredibly disorienting. I think getting back into my usual routine will make a huge and significant difference in my mental well-being; being off routine for someone as OCD as me is always an issue of sorts.

My toe is much better this morning, thanks for asking. It still hurts somewhat, but I spent most of yesterday elevating it or icing it, and I am not limping this morning. I think another day of icing and elevation may just do the trick…which makes me tend to think it’s not broken or bruised or sprained. Tomorrow morning I’ll take a picture of it and send it to my doctor through the app along with a note; I should have done this last week but…it’s been hard getting motivated lately. While I was icing and elevating yesterday I made some significant progress on Abby Collette’s marvelous Body and Soul Food, and I have to share something sort of funny with you at some point about that; I just realized yesterday that Abby Collette is a pseudonym of Abby L. Vandiver; and all along I kept wanting to say Body and Soul Food was written by Abby Vandiver; even correcting myself a couple of times here on the blog when I mentioned the author–and then would chastise myself for confusing two women of color (which happens a lot, sadly; I heard someone call Kellye Garrett Rachel once at a conference–Rachel Howzell Hall–and vowed I would never do that). Turns out the author is actually who I thought she was, just using a different name! This was kind of a relief, because the constant confusing Vandiver for Collette was making feel like I needed to work more on my own subconscious racism. But the book is engaging and entertaining–Abby and I were both in The Faking of the President anthology back in 2020–and I am looking forward to finishing it during this morning’s icing and elevating.

I didn’t leave the house yesterday other than taking out the recycling and a bag of garbage. Paul was gone most of the day–he came home from the office after I went to bed early–and I meant to get a lot more done yesterday than I eventually did get done. The kitchen looks much better than it did before all the stuff with Mom started, and while I still have some things that need to get done today before I return to the office tomorrow, but it’s progress and I will take it. As long as I can stay motivated today, I think I should be able to get a lot of things done today–things that need to be done. I need to make groceries today–I made the list yesterday when they canceled my pick-up order–and I need to get gas on the way home from that. Grocery shopping, lugging everything in from the car, and then putting it all away inevitably makes me tired and exhausted, so the key is to get everything set up before I head out so that I have no excuses and everything is out and ready for me with little to no effort.

I also decided to write something private, merely for me, about my mother. I think it’s necessary for me to sort out my complicated and complex feelings about my relationship with her and my family; there’s a lot of baggage and I am starting to see things now with the kind of clarity that wasn’t possible when she was still with us, if that makes any sense at all. It’s odd how that kind of clarity isn’t possible when they are still alive, you know? And the slow, subtle changes to my life that result from the loss of Mom I’m only now starting to realize. What does this mean about the holidays, going forward? I don’t feel guilty about anything–I thought I might when I lost a parent–but I really don’t. I didn’t write very much to begin with yesterday–a couple of hundred words, maybe, at best–but it was writing and it did help me somewhat…and let’s be honest, how do I deal with everything, really? By losing myself in my writing, that’s how.

My coffee tastes rather marvelous this morning, too. I slept in until eight thirty–I woke up at five thirty, as I do usually every morning–and feel very rested. If it weren’t for my toe, I’d say physically I feel about as good as I can for someone who hasn’t set foot in the gym for over a year. I can tell my muscles need to be worked and stretched and pushed to their limits again, and I think I am going to tell Paul to take my membership off-pause at the end of March; I’d say for March but I’m not sure that’s wise given the toe situation. I feel good this morning–probably best to say “at peace”, really–for the first time in a while. Acceptance has finally come–although I am sure the waves of grief will come back at some point, triggered by something–but I am not going to beat myself up for not getting a lot done this past week, or being pushed off track with everything by Mom dying. I am very behind on everything, and I need to start digging out from under.

And on that note, I am going to make another cup of coffee and start the elevating/icing process for today. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader.

Messages

My God, my email inbox is completely out of control.

At one point in mid-January and before February I had it almost emptied; there was blank space at the bottom of the inbox for more emails to be viewed but there weren’t any. It was a glorious feeling, frankly, for the few weeks it lasted before everything went off the rails. I suspect now that I can get through it all even faster than I did back in mid-January, but it’s sooooooo daunting.

Yesterday I swung by Home Depot to buy the fuse I need for the dryer, which they don’t keep in stock. The helpful man in the Appliance Accessories aisle told me of one place I may be able to find it in stock, and so I called them (and Lowe’s) from the parking lot and found that neither do, so I went ahead and ordered it on-line and it should be here Tuesday. The suspense, right? Will we need a new dryer, or will Greg somehow be able to repair the one they already have? There will undoubtedly be an update on this fascinating case on Wednesday; in which we either have a working dryer or have gone ahead and ordered a new one. Sigh. I also swung by the mail and the Fresh Market; I am going to have to actually venture into the grocery store at some point this weekend (Sunday morning most likely) because I also woke up to an email that my grocery order was canceled due to the system at the store being down this morning; it was originally postponed from yesterday to today, so I think the system has been having problems for a hot moment already; although I do suppose I could order them from the store on the West Bank, which means I could stop at Sonic on the way home and…it really takes so little to make me happy.

I finally booked my flights for San Diego Bouchercon! So my two trips for the year–Malice Domestic and Bouchercon–are all booked and ready for me to travel. I also need to do some more organizing and filing this morning, too–I also have to put the dishes away and do another load of laundry, and I really should work on cleaning up around here. My toe was worse yesterday than it’s been in a while, but this morning the swelling seems to have gone back down and while it’s still painful, it’s not throbbing the way it was last night, which was very painful. Adding message doctor tomorrow on medical app to the to-do list. We also watched two more episodes of Class last night, which differs from Elité enough to make it something new, but it’s funny how the personalities of the actors affect the characters. While many of the storylines are the same, the season of this Indian version is a few episodes shorter, so some of the emphasis on secondary storylines isn’t there as much as in the Spanish. But I want to finish it because Outer Banks’ third season dropped last night, and it looks completely insane and over-the-top, which is wild because the entire run of the show has been insane and over-the-top; I’m really glad it hasn’t been one of those Netflix shows that get orphaned after an amazing first season (so many I couldn’t even begin to name them all). So, today I think I am going to spend some time in my easy chair with my toe elevated and an icepack on it. I want to finish reading Body and Soul Food so I can move on to another book in the TBR pile–there are so damned many, Jesus Lord God–and I do want to keep my reading habit satisfied. I’m been struggling not to buy more books–it’s so damned tempting, especially when you have books out there by favorite authors just begging to be bought–and I also need to start writing thank you cards to everyone for their kindnesses these last few weeks.

And of course, there’s that horrible inbox. But if I start answering and saving my answers as drafts this weekend, I can maybe have the entire thing cleaned and cleared out by Monday afternoon? Perchance to dream….

And then of course I am very behind on writing everything I should be writing, but have had little to no desire to even look at anything these last few weeks. I’ve always felt writer’s block had more to do with depression than anything else; an endlessly revolving cycle in which you get depressed about not writing and then can’t and that renews the depression. I do think I need to start writing something for myself about Mom–if for no other reason than to keep the memories fresh–and I do think that could break the logjam in my brain and get me writing again.

And on that note, I am going to make some more coffee and repair to the chair with the icepack and the book. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I will check back in with you again later.

Enola Gay

Friday and it’s a work-at-home Friday, at that. I have data to enter and forms to check for accuracy–always an exciting day around the Lost Apartment–but also, working at home today is a return to normalcy and routine around here after the big disruption. My grocery order has been rescheduled from today till tomorrow, which is fine; it wasn’t going to be the easiest thing in the world to get them today, frankly. I am going to swing by the office to get more work this morning, and then I am going to swing by Lowe’s/Home Depot or whatever that is just up the road from the office to get the replacement fuse for the dryer–yes, I am going to make an attempt to fix it myself, which seems like madness but if I can spend about fifteen bucks to save us six hundred, I am going to do that very thing. I mean, it makes financial sense, and one of my goals for this year is to make better financial decisions.

It’s also hard to believe and/or imagine that February is almost gone. I mean…usually the month is lost to Carnival, so this year it was lost to something else.

Paul was late getting home last night, so I watched the new Netflix documentary about the Murdaugh murders in South Carolina, and then watched some short documentaries about the presidents on Youtube, starting with James Buchanan and then working my way through John Quincy Adams, Polk and Wilson (i may watch more of them today; I do love my US History, and it’s been a hot minute since I’ve watched anything on US History–but I did yesterday). I also watched a documentary about Fort Proctor on Lake Borgne (which is still there but it is cut off from land by water and is only reachable by boat; you can’t really go inside either because it’s not stable) and I really want to write Fort Proctor into a book at some point, or something, even a short story or two.

There’s just so much about New Orleans that needs and deserves to be written about, you know?

Today I also need to end the wallowing self-indulgence of grief and start digging my way out into the world again. I did finish One Night Gone yesterday and really enjoyed it (more to come on that score), and now can go back to Body and Soul Food. One of the things I want to make certain I am doing from now on is taking a bit of time every day to go ahead and do some reading; if I don’t make a point of it I will never get through this TBR stack, and there are so many wonderful choices in my TBR stack that it’s sometimes hard to pick out my next read. (I’ve also almost finished–at long last–Robert Caro’s exhaustive work on the career of Robert Moses, The Power Broker, which is kind of scary, given it’s great Robert Caro-like length) I need to finish the clean-up/organization of my workspace (which means more filing, but so be it), and I think I’d like to wash the car at some point this weekend as well. I am slowly developing a plan for today’s errands that will make them more time-efficient; the question is, do I want to get Five Guys today? I did have it recently as a treat (I don’t remember when; remember, I have no concept of time and dates anymore), so maybe it’s too soon to have it again or something, but I neither know nor care. We’ll see how I feel when it’s time for me to head over there, once I’ve gotten through the great joy that is this morning.

I slept really well again last night and my toe doesn’t seem to hurt when I walk on it this morning–it’s still sore, make no mistake about that, but it’s a lot better. I still think I need to talk to my doctor (honestly, I don’t know why I have so many issues when it comes to medical assistance that I pay for through my insurance, but it’s a lifelong thing, really) about it, but I’m not sure what good that may or may not do but I suppose it’s better than never having it checked out and just being in pain for the rest of my life. I mean, if it’s something that needs treatment, I should kind of know that, don’t you think?

I also feel decent this morning, rested, at any rate. I’ve been sleeping well every since I returned home, which is a relief and not much of a surprise. It shouldn’t surprise me that there are emotional states that overrule sleeping medications and exhaustion, although I will admit I was worried this inability to sleep would follow me home from Alabama, which it thankfully did not. Now all I need to do is get back to work on the manuscripts and so forth and everything else that is due–my inbox, Jesus Christ the Lord, my inbox–and start working my way through that to-do list (which is by no means comprehensive).

And Outer Banks is back today! Huzzah!

And on that note, I am going to have some more coffee before heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again soon.

Electricity

Ash Wednesday and the party is over for another year. It feels a bit weird to have not gone to a single parade and have missed out on all the festivities, but I will always remember 2023 as the Carnival when Mom died.

I allowed myself to sleep in this morning. I’m still out of the office on leave, which is nice. I am getting better but am still a bit shaky, if truth be told, and so these extra days to kind of get my act together before going back to work are going to be a bit nice. I did manage to get some things done yesterday. I had a Facebook page takeover promo thing to do, which turned out to be a lot of fun–it was a very nice group, and I have to say, the cozy audience (writers and readers both) are amazing. They are welcoming and friendly and inclusive and supportive and I have to say, this entire experience has been really marvelous. While I was doing that I was cleaning out my inbox and working on filing and organizing. This morning the kitchen/office looks much better than it has since this whole business with Mom started; today I plan to do some more. I also need to make a minor grocery run (probably will go to Fresh Market today) and will order for pick-up on Friday to do the bigger stuff (mainly because they’ll have restocked after the Carnival madness by then). I also need to start working on the books again, and I still have that short story to write, and there’s of course all those emails in my inbox (yesterday I was just basically deleting the junk). I was still exhausted for the most part yesterday still, so focusing wasn’t easy, so I spent most of the day watching documentaries about history on Youtube and making Scooter happy by giving him a lap to sleep in. We also started watching Class last night on Netflix, which is basically an Indian remake of Elité, which makes it kind of fun. The actors are all young, pretty and talented; the show seems a bit less glossy and a lot grittier in this version–can an American version be far behind? (I suppose Gossip Girl would qualify, but it’s not in the same league and the reboot is terrible to the point of being embarrassing.) Class also moves faster than Elité; we discover the identity of the first season’s murder victim at the end of episode 2, whereas in Elité we didn’t know it was Marina until halfway through the season–I also think this version’s seasons are shorter. But it’s fun to watch, even though we know what’s going to happen, just seeing how they did the adaptation and how they had to change things because it’s now set in Delhi, India rather than Spain.

My toe is less swollen, less red, and less painful this morning as well. I am beginning to suspect it’s psoriatic arthritis, but I am going to send a message to my doctor about it through the phone app. I also need to buy more wrap for it; I don’t know where the wrap I bought before the trip disappeared to; I may have left it in the hotel room (note to self: never buy black tape again) since I can’t seem to put my hands on it around here. I can swing by CVS on the way to get the mail to buy more, but it’s not cheap and it’s very irritating to have lost the rest of the roll. Now, the toe is just annoying and irritating, but I need to get to the bottom of what happened to it in the first place.

It does feel weird and somewhat disrespectful to pick up the reins of my life again and start moving forward. What is an appropriate period for mourning in modern times? I don’t think I’ll ever stop mourning, to be honest; it’s just something else you have to learn to live with and never get over completely. I remind myself regularly that this isn’t unique to me–I am hardly the first person to lose their mother, nor am I the last–and that really, I was pretty lucky that I had my mom for sixty-two years and I still have my father. I am still processing this, and probably will for a while. It’s very weird that it takes something like this to give you clarity on a lot of things, or insights that should have been fairly obvious all along but never crossed my mind because there wasn’t a reason to even think about it; they just were, you know, and why question these things or think about them? It also forced me to look back at my life (which I don’t like to do, but have been doing more and more since I turned sixty and the realization that the sands in my hourglass are almost finished running through), and realize that sometimes it’s not necessarily a bad thing to look back. The interest in the past that I’ve always had but never extended to my own has now been triggered, and I suspect more and more of my future work is going to be somehow tied to the past–either being set there or things in the past are affecting things in the present. I also need to assess where I am with regards to my plans for the year; I didn’t really have plans–more of an amorphous this is what I’d like to write for this year thing than anything else–especially since I never really make writing plans because they inevitably are changed or have to change and I am very resistant to change (not sure why that is, my entire life has always been about changing), but I do have a vague idea of how I want the rest of the year to play out writing-wise. I also have to start being more restrictive of my traveling because I am going to start needing to go to Kentucky more often every year (yay for audiobooks!) or at least meeting my dad in Alabama to visit Mom (Alabama is much easier than Kentucky for me, obviously).

So, today is catch-up day; finishing laundry and dishes and chores, running errands, organizing and filing, maybe doing some reading (I am really enjoying One Night Gone by Tara Laskowski), and I also need to start trying to figure out how to fix the dryer, or if I even can. Paul was kind of adamant about not buying a new one at first, but as this has gone on for weeks (I’ve been gone the last three weekends) he is getting more and more resigning to buying a new one. So on the to-do list I am going to update after I post this will go figure out if I can fix the dryer myself. I don’t have to work in the office on Friday, but I do need to swing by there to pick up some more work, and there’s a Lowe’s out by the office I can swing by the see if they have the fuse I may need (I may just need to unplug it and vacuum out the lint thing; it’s the simplest solution and definitely worth a try). I also need to order a Bluetooth keyboard for the laptop; the one I am using now is battery operated and of course, the batteries are always dead when I need to use it, so I need to get one that is rechargeable.

But I feel good and rested and at peace this morning, so I am going to focus on that and get moving. Have a lovely rest of your day, Constant Reader, and I will check in which you again later.

Souvenir

Happy Mardi Gras! Everywhere else it’s just Tuesday.

I was exhausted yesterday, and essentially useless. Scooter demanded a lap almost as soon as I got home, and apparently he missed me. I collapsed into my easy chair, he climbed into my lap and started purring as well as making biscuits before curling up and sleeping (and purring in his sleep), which was comforting and relaxing at the same time. I finally slept last night, and feel more human and Greg-like this morning than I have in a while. The bed felt wonderful, especially this morning, and i really would have been more than delighted and happy to have stayed in bed for another few hours. But I agreed to do a Facebook page takeover this morning to promote A Streetcar Named Murder (what better way to do promo for a New Orleans book than on Fat Tuesday?) several months ago, and at the time I didn’t know what the future held for this year’s Carnival for me and my family. I would imagine the neutral ground on St. Charles is crowded with parade-goers already; it was already a zoo on the neutral ground yesterday when I got home. I knew we would most likely be taking today as a holiday and not going anywhere or doing anything to celebrate, figuring we would be exhausted by Fat Tuesday and staying in to recover. I am out on bereavement leave from work until Friday, which is nice, and I will probably begin the process of figuring out where I am with things and digging out from under (my email inbox is out of control; I had it under control until a few weeks ago), and making groceries and getting organized. It’ll be nice to be home this weekend after three weekends in a row away. I’ve driven almost three thousand miles over the last three weekends, and my poor car is probably wondering what the fuck at this point.

But it’s good to be home, good to be feeling like myself again, and there is a lot of work that needs to be done around here. I really let everything slide these last few weeks–don’t even want to think about how much filing there is to do, and organizing–and of course, the kitchen/office is a total mess as always. I’d started making progress on the gradual thorough clean of the apartment I’d planned as a New Year’s goal before everything went up into the air; I’m not sure where I left off but do know that it won’t kill me if I simply start over again. I’d really like things to be neat and tidy (another of my mother’s legacies) so I can get to work on my manuscript editing that I am so terribly behind on. I also have a short story to write. So basically I have the rest of this week off to get my shit together before my work-at-home Friday and then my first weekend at home since January. I am going to probably do some bits and pieces around here today but after the Facebook page takeover thing I think I am simply going to spend the rest of the day relaxing and resting and recovering and hopefully regaining my equilibrium. I started listening to Tara Laskowski’s One Night Gone in the car yesterday after finishing The Other Mother, and I’m going to probably dedicate some time to reading more of it today. Just looking around this morning as I write this and sip my oh-so-delicious coffee I made for myself this morning (I do laugh at myself and how particular I’ve become about things I like, like my morning coffee; it’s never the same when I have to get hotel coffee or make it in one of those little coffee maker things they have in some hotel rooms). I need to take out the trash and put dishes away before cleaning out the sink again and running another load through the dishwasher. I also need to figure out what to do about our dryer situation; I’m going to try to fix it myself before giving up and buying a new one.

My toe is still slightly painful this morning, but I can walk on it without either wincing or limping so I consider that a victory. I’m going to wrap it again this morning as well as ice it and keep it elevated (hence the day in my chair reading Tara’s marvelous book); tomorrow is going to be errands day (which will require lists, and we all know how much I love a good to-do list) and probably laundry and other chores, and I’ll also probably start digging into the editorial process with my two manuscripts. I would also like to start back to the gym for stretching and cardio soon; maybe even go to some yoga classes, which can also help me with focus and relaxation. I need to start taking better care of myself; eating better, dropping some weight, getting some exercise, and so forth; it will make me feel better physically and mentally; and of course, I now have the great joy of audiobooks for the treadmill, elliptical, and stationary bike. I also have to accept that my work schedule may never go back to what it used to be, and the rest of my working life before retirement is going to be this schedule that I’ve been working now for months.

But I feel better about almost everything this morning–amazing what a good night’s sleep will do for you–and I know grief will sucker-punch me again at least a few more times–but I think I’ve achieved acceptance at last, which is a start to healing. I know I’ll never get over losing Mom, but I think I am starting down the path of learning to live with the loss.

One step at a time, one day at a time, one task at a time.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Fat Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later–I need to write up The Other Mother–and thank you again for all the kindness.

Our Lips Are Sealed

Back in the Lost Apartment on Orpheus Monday/Lundi Gras, and I am very tired and drained and exhausted. I’ve lost all sense of time and dates, and I am sure there are things I should have been doing that need to get done but I don’t know what any of them are and at this point, I don’t think I really care all that much. It’s depression, I know; I’ve dealt with it before and know how it feels and manifests, both emotionally and physically, in my life.

Interestingly enough, my toe seems to be getting better. The shoes I brought for the funeral were new and had never been worn before. I wrapped up the toe yesterday morning, put on the socks, and then the I was barely able to get the shoe on. It was so tight that it was almost painful, but as the day progressed it hurt less and less. This morning when I got up it was still red but the swelling had gone down a lot. I think if I wrap it up again, elevate it. and ice it a bit it may go back to normal entirely. I should probably talk to my doctor about it (I am very uneasy about the possibility of gout–how eighteenth century!–or psoriatic arthritis. That toe always has psoriasis on it, and my psoriasis causing arthritis is something my doctor has been concerned about. Yay) But it’s an enormous relief to not have to go to the emergency room or try to get into the doctor’s office; I’ll just message him on my medical app.

It’s funny, because as I was finishing listening to The Other Mother (by Carol Goodman, do yourself a favor and get a copy) on my way home today I was thinking about my mom and the fact that I’m listening to a book about mothers and that revisiting the places I based Bury Me in Shadows on and around also gave me a bit of pause because I realized that one of the major themes of the book was ,well, mothers and sons. I don’t know if I’d planned on writing it that way or if it just happened organically; I guess I would have to find my journals and notes for the book and reread them to see if it was a conscious choice or something that simply happened, or maybe I just have mothers and sons on my mind these last few weeks and it’s a coping mechanism my oh-so-clever-and-sly brain developed to help shield me. I don’t know. I don’t know much, honestly. I am very tired.

The drive was quick and easy. I had no idea of how to get out of where we’re from in Alabama, but I knew when the Google Maps app started giving me directions that they were different from how I got there–since I’d gotten off a highway to get the motel and the app didn’t tell me to get back on the highway to come back. It took me all through the backroads and countryside of Alabama, and then before I knew it I was crossing over into Mississippi and I still wasn’t on an interstate highway. I kept checking the phone to make sure I hadn’t missed something or had put the wrong address into it or something, but after a little while and some lovely scenery, I came into Meridian from the north and hopped on I-59 South and BOOM. Here I am. I made it in just barely over five hours, including one stop for the bathroom and gas. Why is it always faster for me to come back to New Orleans every time I drive north? Unexplained mysteries, for sure.

Well, Scooter wants some attention and I am hungry, so I am going to bring this to a close. Sorry to be brief, but I am also really tired. I’ll check in with you again later, Constant Reader. And happy Lundi Gras.

Sad Day

So, it’s today.

It feels slightly unreal to be writing this from a lower end chain motel in a very small town in northwest/central Alabama, something I would have said a month ago would probably never happen. And yet here I am, in the lower reaches of the Appalachian Mountains to say my final goodbye to my mother. I make no promises or guarantees that I won’t cry, or break down, or anything like that. It was hard driving up here yesterday emotionally; I kept hoping that the drive would never end because I don’t want to accept that she’s gone, and I don’t want to cry in front of my father. I think that would be too hard on him.

The actual drive itself was easy and I was listening to Carol Goodman’s marvelous The Other Mother and literally had just gotten to the big twist when I pulled into the motel parking lot. I’m looking forward to finishing it on the way home tomorrow morning.

Once I was here, Dad and I went for a drive through the county and it was surreal. Things of course I remember from my childhood are long gone–with a few exceptions–and there were several times I’d remember something and Dad would confirm it, surprised at the little detail I was remembering–and there were big details I was completely wrong about; like where my uncle was killed in a car accident, for one. But some of the things I remembered and put into Bury Me in Shadows were still as I remembered them from my childhood, but really? For the most part it was like I’d never been here before; my memories had reordered the geography and so forth for ease of memory–or perhaps it happened when I was fictionalizing the place and thus put things where I needed them to be, and my brain turned my fictionalization into the memory. But we did eventually end up at the cemetery where Mom will be laid to rest today, and walked through the small graveyard visiting relatives and friends of my parents, some of whom I remembered and some I did not.

It’s very weird seeing your parents’ headstone for the first time. The headstone made it all real.

I also remembered something a little sweet and a little sad at the same time; I guess I should have said poignant and left it at that. It was triggered by something my father was saying about my mother as we rode along the backroads of a back county: I always thought of wherever my mother lived as “home.” I wouldn’t say I was visiting my parents, I always said I was going home. “Oh, I’m going home for Thanksgiving.” “Oh, I’m going home this weekend.” In my fifties I began consciously making the effort to not say that, because it inevitably confused people or led to a longer explanation…I’d say visiting my parents or going to Kentucky but for me, to me, internally and in my head and heart and soul, I meant I’m going home because home is where my mom is. It’s true; everywhere my mother lived, somehow she managed to turn that house into a place that felt like home to me, even if I had never lived there. It was dumplings waiting for me warming on the stove when I pulled into the driveway in the dark after driving for twelve hours, exhausted and tired and wanting nothing more than to crawl into bed but instead staying up for another hour, eating two bowls of the most amazing dumplings ever cooked (oh how I wish I knew how to make them the way she could), and then a piece of the homemade blueberry cheesecake she’d made for me because they were both my favorites. She always made my favorites while I was there, and always looked so sad when I hugged her goodbye when it was time for me to make the long drive home. She’d always wash and fold the clothes I took with me and wore, so they’d be clean and I could just put them away when I got home.

Yes, I was spoiled. I always was, really. I was the baby, of course, and also a boy. I was a very strange child, and certainly nothing either of my parents could have possibly dreamed of/feared when I was born (we drove past the hospital where both my sister and I were born; my sister took nine hours, I took less than three, if that long) on the day of that family reunion back in 1961. That family reunion was just up the county road from where my mom will be buried tomorrow. I never really got the point of cemeteries until today, either. I always thought they were kind of morbid and creepy, and I never understood the need to go visit graves and tend them and bring flowers and all of that. Yesterday walking around the cemetery and seeing the graves of people I remember from my childhood also brought back memories of the person–which was kind of sweet and lovely and poignant all at the same time, and I thought Dad knows almost everyone here which made me think about all the losses he’s suffered through in his life. I didn’t grow up down there in the midst of the entire family on both sides the way my dad did, so these were his aunts and uncles and the cousins and friends he grew up with–and he also remembered some choice gossip about some of those people resting there, which just made me smile a little bit inside, too–ah yes, I always forget my parents basically grew up in Peyton Place.

And it was nice hearing the stories, too; double dates with friends, or the time my uncle was late picking them up and my dad was furious and yelled at him all the way to my mother’s because she was waiting for him and he was late and he worried she’d think he stood her up, then laughing as he remembered how his older brother didn’t say anything but basically was driving 100 miles per hour on those then-unpaved back roads to shut him up. (My uncle died in October.) “Did it work?” I asked, and Dad grinned and said “no, I yelled at him until we pulled up at her house.” They were going to a football game in Tuscaloosa, somehow having gotten their hands on Alabama football tickets (I chose not to bring up the fact that Dad’s side of the family were all Auburn fans) and my mother was excited because she’d never been to a game.

Okay, time to put on my game face and get ready to face this. Thank you all for your kindness, by the way, if I haven’t thanked you all before.

Winning Ugly

Well, once I’ve swilled enough coffee I’ll be loading up the car and driving north yet again. And while my trip last weekend involved only driving through Alabama, this is my third consecutive weekend of travel that somehow involves my birth state. I’ve been gone the last three weekends; I am not sure I am going to know how to act next weekend when I actually get to stay home for a change. I’ll drive back first thing Monday morning, so I can get home before the Orpheus parade, and then I’ll be on bereavement leave for the rest of next week. I could have taken it this past week but I also didn’t know when the funeral was going to be so I just went into the office every day this week and muddled through. I know this next week isn’t going to end with everything healed and me past it all–you never get over it, you just learn to live with it–but I need the time to actually recalibrate and settle back into my normal life, which I’ve not really had much opportunity to do these last few weeks. After the trip to the library events then came Mom’s issues and here we are. Throw parade season into the mix for added discombobulation, the whatever-it-is-I-did-to-my-toe–and let’s also not forget my dryer stopped working before the library events weekend, which hasn’t helped either. I’m going to try to fix it–if its just the fuse–after Fat Tuesday is over and I can head over to Lowe’s while looking at repair videos on Youtube; if that doesn’t work then we need to get a new one, which sucks–we also need a new refrigerator, which has been even more of a challenge, because all refrigerators now are too tall to fit into the cubby hole made for it by the kitchen cabinets, which may mean the cabinets over the refrigerator need to be taken out, which is an even bigger pain in the ass than just getting a new refrigerator. I really want one with the freezer on the bottom to alleviate stooping and bending (I’m getting really old, y’all), but those are all too big to fit but even the traditional freezer on top ones are too tall for the space, which is strange and weird and who knows what all.

I slept really well last night. I kept my toe elevated most of the day and was occasionally alternating between hot and cold on it, so it’s not quite so swollen and painful this morning. I think the smartest thing for me to actually do is just wear my house shoes to drive in the car–they will keep the toe cushioned better than my regular shoes–and while it may very well be gout (Paul and another friend have suggested it as a possibility, which I wouldn’t have considered, I’m thinking it might not be. I do have psoriasis and that too can cause an arthritis attack–if that is what this is; gout is a form of arthritis), there are all kinds of other options. The primary concern that I have is that my only option may be going to the emergency room, and how long will something as low-priority as having gout or pain in my big toe keep me in the waiting room there? But I do think it’s something I need to do Monday when I get back here–if it doesn’t clear up. If it does…I don’t know. Like I said, it still hurting this morning but not nearly as bad as it did yesterday so maybe keeping it elevated and alternating heat and cold is the right way to go with it more tonight? I honestly don’t know, but I do know this couldn’t have happened at a less opportune time. But at least it isn’t throbbing today, which it did yesterday. Progress? Improvement? I’ll take either one. I don’t think the driving will help, but who knows? And at least the Hampton Inn should have an ice machine, which should make it much easier to ice it.

And I suppose once I am home on Monday, then I can start the moving on with my life. Before I leave this morning there are some chores around the house I’d like to do (mainly so I don’t have to come home to them after the funeral) and of course I have to swing by a gas station (I don’t really want to even think about my gas credit card bill) on the way out. According to Google Maps, it’s a five and a half hour drive of 349 miles, approximately. Since the first of the month I think, by the time I get home, I will have driven about five or so thousand miles? I hadn’t even hit thirty thousand miles on the odometer since buying the car back in 2017 yet before all this started–and if you take drives to Kentucky and/or Alabama for the library events, I don’t think I would even have twenty thousand miles on it, frankly. This past week has been a weird one. As it progressed I found myself getting less overwhelmed and sad and breaking down as much later in the week than I had earlier in the week, so I guess that’s all a part of the process, and the funeral itself will be the final curtain on all of this. It’s still hard for my mind to entirely grasp yet–oh yeah Mom’s gone–but it’s going to be much easier on me than it is on the rest of the family; they saw her all the time while I only saw her once or twice a year. I’ve not gone down the I could have been a better son route–mainly because I dealt with all that guilt a long time ago and have moved past it all; it is what it was and I’ve never wasted energy on regret, nor am I about to now…although I’ve come close a couple of times since Mom’s death. I also have to pack, but I’m not terribly worried about that. I am going to wear sweats in the car (and my house shoes) and so all I really need to pack is socks and underwear and my shaving kit. I also need to try on my black slacks to see if they fit, else I’ll have to go to Walmart at some point and buy a new pair that will fit my fat ass.

Heavy sigh. Seriously.

And on that note, I am going to make something to eat, get some more coffee, and start getting organized for yet another weekend drive. Sorry, Ladies of Iris–I am going to miss your parade for only the second time since 1996. Talk to you later, Constant Reader.

Undercover of the Night

Work-at-home Friday, during which I also have to get ready to leave town tomorrow. That means making groceries, picking up a prescription, and packing all on top of my work-at-home duties–which means I’ll have to work a little later than usual. I’ll be on Bereavement leave next week, so I don’t have to work again until Friday (which is a work at home day, but it won’t kill me to come into the office that day anyway; I’ll need to pick up my work-at-home stuff at some point–although I could swing by the office on my way home from Alabama…or, I could just drop in on Friday morning next week to pick it all up. I don’t know, I guess I am going to play it all by ear from now on.

January seemed to last forever and a day; yet February is flying past like an Air Force flyover at Tiger Stadium. Granted, I think I lost the thread of time after Mom’s stroke, but I was incredibly startled yesterday at the office writing “02/16/23” as the date on forms. 02/16/23? How weird does that look? It makes me vaguely uncomfortable whenever I see it, thinking that can’t be right, can it? But it is correct, and since I put the reminders in our clients’ files for when they need new paperwork along with the date their current expires, I have to use 2024 which really looks wrong.

It’s going to be weird being back in the part of Alabama where I’m from–I’ve not been there since my grandfather’s funeral at least twenty years ago and more likely even longer ago. I had been wanting to go back out of curiosity more than anything else; wanting to see how different it is now from what I remember, and I’d like to drive around taking pictures of things and so forth–I’d also like to see my maternal grandparents’ graves, since I am there–and just in general remember, you know? See how much of it I got wrong in Bury Me in Shadows, and if there’s anything to inspire my next Alabama book. You never know, right? I am probably going to leave early enough on Saturday so I can do some of that driving around before checking into the hotel–see how lost I can get, right?–because really it’s all not very far away from where I’ll be staying. The nearest motel is about seventeen miles away from the cemetery, and the cemetery itself is in between the county seat and where we’ll be staying. It’ll be interesting to see how differently I remembered things for the book as opposed to the current reality.

I didn’t go out to the parades because I have somehow managed to injure my big toe. This is making walking a bit of a challenge, and I am not exactly sure what I did or when it happened. I don’t think it was an obvious oh my God fucking ouch moment, but more of a little twinge or something that I thought I hope that doesn’t hurt and promptly forgot about until I stood up again, but suffice it to say the toe is painful and swollen. I don’t think it’s broken as I can move it without pain, but putting weight on it is an entirely different story. But Paul managed to get his annual shoe from Muses (a particularly nice one I’ll post a picture of at some point) before the predicted downpour occurred and managed to get home without getting wet. So, all in all Muses was quite a victory for Paul again this year, even though I had to skip it. I doubt that I will go out there at all tonight, either. If my toe is better Monday I may go out for Orpheus, but parade season has been a bust for me this year so far.

I slept late this morning, too–it’s been a hot minute since I had the chance to actually, you know, sleep late–and it did feel rather marvelous. The toe doesn’t hurt as much this morning as it did last night and I think some of the swelling has gone down. Since I’m home I can alternate heat and cold on it for a bit to see if that helps at all. I’d rather not be limping at my mother’s funeral–and seriously, how can I not remember when I did it or how? Sigh. But my coffee is wonderful this morning, and it’s chilly outside, and I have a couple of errands that need running later. Sigh–including a trip to CVS to get stuff to keep the toe wrapped up with. Such terrible timing for this, too. Heavy heaving sigh.

But I’ve downloaded Tara Laskowski’s One Night Gone and two Carol Goodmans (The Other Mother and The Seduction of Water) to listen to in the car on the way up there and back; I’ll take my hard copy of whichever one I decide to listen to in the car with me so I can finish reading it while I am there and can listen to something else on the way back to New Orleans on Monday morning.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. May you all have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably post here before I leave tomorrow morning before they close the streets for Iris.

Rock and a Hard Place

Thursday and the morning of the Muses parade. There are three parades tonight–first Babylon, then Chaos, and capped off by super-krewe Muses and their shoes–and while I am not in a great parade mood, I will probably go out there for a little while at the very least. Tomorrow and Monday are work-at-home days for me because of the parades, and also the days I have to get any errands or anything done that requires using the car because from about five o’clock on Friday till about one in the morning after Bacchus my car cannot be moved–I mean, I can move it, but won’t get very far because I have to stay inside the box. So I will probably try to make groceries on Friday morning, and then on Monday I will try to get the mail and pick up a prescription. It’s going to be an odd weekend. I have lots of stuff to do and I don’t really want to miss the Iris parade Saturday morning; I’ll probably also do Orpheus on Monday; I may go out there a bit on Friday night–those Friday night parades are fun–but for the most part I think I am going to skip the festivities as a general rule. I am already exhausted, but we’ll see how it all goes.

I’m adjusting. My friend Victoria, who lost her wife just before Christmas, compares grief to an undertow: “one moment you’re perfectly fine the next you’re being sucked under.” She’s not wrong, and it’s a pretty good analogy, to be honest (she’s always been an intelligent writer). I find myself getting dragged under at the most unexpected times, and triggered by the most unexpected things; I was going to wash dishes on Tuesday night, so I filled the sink with soapy water and had just put the last dirty dish in the water when I heard my mom saying you always wash the dishes first because the dishwasher is really just good for sterilizing and so I’ve always washed the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. It made me smile a bit wistfully when I heard her, and then came the waves and I was sucked under, and I never did get back to the dishes Tuesday night (I finished them last night). I wash and fold my clothes the way she did–there’s all these little things I do every day that I do because that’s the way my mom did them.

Sigh. Even though I lived over seven hundred miles away from my parents for the last twenty-four or five years, my mother’s influence on me and how I do things will last until I’m in my own grave. I did manage to get a load of laundry done last night, put the dishes away, and managed another load in the dishwasher as well. I’m not motivated this week, which I suppose isn’t really the surprise that I think it is, really. What makes it worse is I was already in the malaise after finishing two manuscripts back to back. I had hoped to get one of them edited and revised this month, and here we are on the 16th with only twelve days left in the month and I haven’t revised a fucking thing. When I got home from work yesterday I discovered a very sweet voicemail from my father on my phone which kind of sent me into a tailspin of sorts–he was worried about me being down here alone with my grief; at least he “has (my) sister and her kids” around him to lessen the grief and keep him occupied. I was so incredibly touched–even writing the words just now filled my eyes with tears again–that in the middle of what has to be all-consuming grief, living alone in the house they shared for the last twenty-five years and where everywhere you look is a reminder of her, he was able to put all that aside to worry about me?

Well, I just found out the service in Alabama is this weekend, so I’ll be leaving New Orleans Saturday morning before they close St. Charles and staying through Monday–so I can get home before they close the streets for Orpheus. I guess that will be the official closure for me–but I am fairly certain the grief is going to be with me for awhile yet. So no Iris or Tucks or Bacchus for me this year, which is kind of fine, really; I am not feeling parade season this year, honestly. I had been thinking that I’d be able to forget everything and enjoy myself for a bit at the parades, but…last night when I heard Druids passing at the corner the last thing in the world I wanted to do was head to the corner. I also did something to my big toe–sprained it maybe–I don’t know what or remember how I did it or when it happened, but at some point yesterday my big toe started throbbing and it hurts still this morning; whenever I put weight or pressure on it, it hurts. It’s so lovely having your body break down all around you, one of the great joys of becoming older.

I slept pretty decently last night, too, which was nice. I hate the lethargy of malaise mixed with grief; this is a witch’s brew I could have easily gone the rest of my life not knowing about. It’s also going to be weird being back in Alabama, too—I’ve not been back to where we’re from since my grandfather’s funeral, in either 2003 or 2004? Maybe it was earlier, because I think I had a car and there was a year or so at the beginning of the century when I didn’t have one. I should take advantage of this to drive around and take pictures of things for my memories and for future writing…and on THAT note, I think I’m going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I will be back later.