Category: New Orleans

Let My Love Be Your Pillow

Saturday morning and Paul comes home today! Huzzah! Huzzah! I of course literally have no idea what time he will be arriving–he never tells me these things and I never think to ask–but it’s fine. Yesterday was a good work-at-home day. Sam the handyman came by in the morning to finish touching things up and clean everything up, which was marvelous, and now the apartment sort of looks like our apartment again. It’s great, and it makes me want to clean, which is something I’d forgotten that I enjoyed so much. I’ve really let the housework slide since the pandemic started (sure, let’s blame it on that, shall we?) but a lot of it had to do with the walls in the living room. tl;dr= we had some leaks, and water damage to the walls in the living room. The leaks were repaired, but the plaster and paint somehow never got finished and we’d been living with that for a while….and when you have places where the bare wall is showing…the apartment, even clean and sparkling from ceiling to floor, would look deranged and damaged and sloppy. I think I felt a little defeated, to be honest.

I’ve felt defeated a lot over the last few years, if I’m going to be honest. But I’ve been feeling oddly better lately about things lately, even optimistic at times. I know, right? It’s kind of scary. It’s like I don’t even know who I am anymore, but I have full faith in the universe to deliver yet another blow the way it always does when I start feeling like this again–a sense of contentment and peace. I’m sleeping better, getting better rest, and I am getting things done rather than sitting in my easy chair every night scrolling through social media while Youtube videos stream endlessly on continual play. Ironically, I remember feeling this way on another hot August Friday in New Orleans, two weeks before Hurricane Katrina. I had just finished Mardi Gras Mambo at long last and turned it in, and that Friday I had met with the Admissions office at UNO to see about finishing my degree in English and pursuing a master’s, and even potentially eventually a PhD. Yes, I had ambitions. The meeting had gone incredibly well. We scheduled a meeting with the chair of the English department, and it looked fortuitous and very good; I’d have to pay for the semester required to get the English degree, but it looked like I’d get the master’s not only without having to pay, but I’d also get an on-campus part-time job. I don’t reflect back very often, but sometimes I remember that last optimistic August before Katrina and wonder how different my life would look now had Katrina never happened…or at least had the levees held. I’ve always felt the lack of educational degree and study keenly; I was far too young when I started school and majored in English to really appreciate the in-depth examination of classic literature and other forms. None of what little I learned stuck, either. I have also always been made to feel that the books I actually did read and appreciate were lowbrow; on par for someone as uneducated and unserious like me. I’ve not read much of the classic writers, for example; I’ve never read Edith Wharton or Jane Austen or much of Henry James; I may give Hemingway another try at some point but I was unimpressed with both A Farewell to Arms and The Old Man and the Sea. Fitzgerald wrote beautifully about horrible people I’m not interested in; I love Faulkner but he’s a lot of work to read (but I will go to my grave loving “A Rose for Emily” and wishing I had written one thing that perfect), so I’m not going to read Faulkner for pleasure–even though I take great pleasure in the voice and the rhythm of the words and so forth, I’m still looking for characterization and story.

Hell, there are any number of classic mystery writers I’ve never read, for that matter. I had never read Ross Macdonald until I was on a panel with Christopher Rice who sang his praises highly enough for me to get a couple of his books…and have always been delighted that I did. I think I’ve read one Rex Stout novel, but I can’t remember anything about it and I think I am thinking of a television adaptation with William Conrad and Timothy Hutton? Or did I imagine that, too? One of the things I am loving about reading the short stories in these marvelous old Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthologies is getting to read authors I’ve heard of that I’ve not read. Yesterday night I read “Curious Adventure of Mr. Bond” by Nugent Barker, from Stories That Scared Even Me; “Four O’Clock” by Rice Day, “Of Missing Persons” by Jack Finney, and Paul Eiden’s “Too Many Coincidences”, from My Favorites in Suspense. I enjoyed them all, but the Barker was my least favorite of the four. It’s written in Ye Olde Timey Style, and it goes on for far too long, and it’s big twist I saw coming. I also didn’t much care for Mr. Bond. The Day story was one of those macabre little tales of irony with the kind of ending that Daphne du Maurier mastered and I’ve always loved–and aspire to write. (The trick is the ending has to be earned.) The Finney story was also one of those, but a bit more melancholic than macabre.

I also spent some more time with Superman last night. First I watched a documentary called Look Up In The Sky! The Amazing Story of Superman, which I followed with this week’s episode of My Adventures with Superman. I was very pleased to see Jimmy Olsen talked about in the documentary, and the actor from the television series, Jack Larson, was openly gay and was in a very long term relationship that lasted until he died in 2015, as someone very kindly reminded me on Twitter the other day in response to my talking about Jimmy on here. I am really intrigued at the idea of writing a Jimmy Olsen story…although I’m not exactly sure what I would do with such a thing, and I’m equally sure publishing it would be a trademark/copyright violation of some sort. I’ll make a note and keep chewing on it, though.

I also worked on the book some last night (at last) which felt marvelous and overdue. It was so hot yesterday–even with the air conditioner on full blast and desperately trying to keep up, you could tell inside that everything outside was roasting. I am quite pleased to have gotten past the revision of Chapter Five at long last and I have to say, I am most happy with what I did. Of course, Chapter Six is from scratch, which is going to be an enormous pain in my ass, naturally; writing anything where nothing other than a thought exists at the moment is always harder than revising. Revising can be either tedious or a lot of fun; it’s when your making the book better written and deepening characters and cleaning up shit and building on the ideas you’ve already gotten down but didn’t express particularly well as you were just madly trying to get words on the page and the story advanced and all of that.

Whew. Breathe.

I also woke up to a marvelous email–I just checked–from my editor on Mississippi River Mischief letting me know when the edits would come and included…”This book is fabulous, btw.”

Whew,

And on that marvelous note, off to the spice mines with me!

My Way

Work at home Friday! Huzzah! Huzzah!

I received an invitation code the other day from a friend for Blue Sky, one of the new upstarts looking to replace the dumpster fire hellhole that is Twitter, and so yesterday I set up the account. I am also on Threads. On Blue Sky I am @scottynola, just like I am on Twitter, but on Threads I am @gregh121. I probably should have been consistent across the three platforms, but why would I start making things easier for people to find me now, twenty years into my career? But I posted on both Facebook and Twitter that I was there–and Twitter locked my account. Yes, the Muskrat is all about free speech, isn’t he?

Honestly. But Twitter becomes more and more of a shit-show with every passing day, and it’s not like it was ever a great place to be for long, anyway. I’d go on there, scroll through, have some fun and/or funny interactions with friends and acquaintances…and then inevitably it would turn horrific and I could feel the bile rising within myself as I read more and started to reply angrily…before deleting and closing the app. I wonder what future historians (if there are any future historians) will write and think about this era? What will they debate about, what will they think the truth was and how will it all wind up being reported? How harshly will we all be judged?

That’s a rather chilling thought on Morning 4, 432, 172 of an excessive heat advisory day here in New Orleans. I had thought and planned to go to the OMV today and get my real ID at long last, but I cannot find one item that I need…which Paul keeps so I won’t lose it and yet I was able to put my hands rather easily on all of the other things I need. The irony of this is not lost on me. I also am kind of glad of an excuse to not go outside today, in all honesty. It’s going to “feel like” up to 120 every day over the weekend, and I’d really rather not. It was miserable coming home from work yesterday, and I had to run a couple of errands as well. Dreadful. Just leaving my backpack in the car during those brief intervals at the stops I made was enough for my laptop to be hot to the touch when I got it inside. I think I have to make at least one grocery run this weekend, but I don’t know when I want to attempt it and go out into that. Paul’s coming home sometime on Saturday, and it would probably make the most sense to wait until he’s home, maybe? I don’t know, really. My brain is sort of on the fritz these days from the heat (yes, Greg, it’s recent and it’s the heat, whatever helps you get through it) but I had a great breakthrough last night on the WIP, and realized what absolutely is missing from the manuscript. So, hopefully after completing today’s homework duties (seriously, why haven’t I been calling it that all along instead of work-at-home? Embarrassment because it sounds like being a kid again? It’s work I do at home that’s more easily and efficiently done here than at the office, so homework), I’ll be able to dig into the book and get this important piece of the voice into the book. I also know where it’s heading in this first act, and I kind of have an idea for the middle for a change. That’s always satisfying; those a-ha moments are always so satisfying that it’s almost like having an orgasm; I want a cigarette immediately after, LOL.

But the finishing touches on the apartment are being done today, and I have to say having the walls back together on the first floor is amazing. I always forget how lovely this apartment is when, well, things are the way they are supposed to be. It’s an old house, and things go wrong and leaks occur and so on, and we generally tend to not complain about things…so they tend to not get the attention they need when we would prefer that to occur. But with the walls taken care of, with new plaster where it had damaged and then being painted over to match at last, it looks lovely in the living room and kitchen (I’d forgotten about that patch of white paint up in the corner by the ceiling; but it now matches) and now I no longer have any excuse for not cleaning and keeping the apartment up, which primarily was the defeat of “oh because of the damaged walls it will always look slovenly in here no matter what else I do” which turned into a multi-year slide. Had the walls been redone just before the shut down, I could have really used that time at home to clean the fuck out of this place. But the shutdown came with a malaise–depression, undoubtedly–and so nothing ever really got done.

I slept really well last night–woke up at five, again at six, and stayed in bed until seven–and now am enjoying my coffee and finishing this up. Sam the handyman has already come by to check in; I told him I’d be moving upstairs with my laptop and he has free rein on the downstairs. I need to start the cleaning upstairs anyway, and so if I am up there working when I take a break I can go clean something. There’s a television with Apple TV as well, so there’s literally no reason why I can’t get things done with music playing through the television. I’ve already started redoing the upstairs in bits and pieces. Tonight when I am finished with everything I think I will start watching this new reboot of The Real Housewives of New York. I’m kind of burning out on reality television, which has fascinated me for almost two solid decades now, so it would be nice to see a new, interesting take on these shows. (Hell, I even wrote a book around them.) I still have to get caught up on this season of Superman and Lois, but I am experiencing quite a bit of super-hero burnout lately, which is why I am enjoying the animated My Adventures with Superman so much–it’s optimistic and the doom and gloom and darkness so endlessly in supply for the DC Universe movies (thanks to The Dark Knight series) isn’t fun to watch.

And on that note, I am going to get a cup of coffee and head upstairs. Happy Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow. Or later–one never can be sure.

Daytime Friends

We made it to Wednesday, Constant Reader! Can you believe it? I barely can. And yet here we are, at the crest of the week and ready to head downhill into the weekend, in which Paul comes home. Huzzah! Huzzah! I have to say I am rather proud of myself. Despite being alone–which isn’t a regular occurrence in the Lost Apartment–I’ve managed. I’ve only gotten bored a couple of times, and the loneliness isn’t pronounced; it’s there, but not in the forefront of my mind and it’s just kind of there. I was actually thinking the other night (morbidly) you know, I could probably handle the living alone thing if and when it comes to that. Not something I want to happen any time soon, mind you–and I certainly have no desire for it, but I kind of get it where my dad is coming from. Obviously, being alone in the house, given that Mom died earlier this year and how much Dad is going through, is of course going to make me think about being alone and living alone and having to go on alone. I’ve thought about this before–any number of times over the years, especially every time Paul’s had to undergo surgery of some kind–which is morbid, yes, but realistic. We’re at the age where we have to start recognizing that we aren’t immortal–my aching and sore body reminds me of that fact every damned day, thank you very much–and start planning. Wills and so forth, legal protections, potentially even getting married because of Louisiana’s insane inheritance laws. (Thank you, research for A Streetcar Named Murder.)

I also have to get my driver’s license renewed, and I may as well get one of those Real ID things while I am at it, since the deadline for getting one is next May and since I have to go to the OMV anyway, I may as well get this done. What a royal pain in the ass this is, I might add; I’ll have to find my birth certificate or my passport (which is probably useless as it is most likely expired since we went to Toronto several years ago), and some other things. Aggravating, yes, but in a worst case scenario I won’t be able to find my birth certificate and my passport will have expired, so I will need to wait for Paul to get home because he knows where they are kept (I do not; I lose things so Paul is always in charge of important things–but I’ve not managed to lose the title to my car!). Ah, a trip to the West Bank. Which means Sonic for lunch! Huzzah!

It seriously doesn’t take much to please me.

I should have looked for things last night when I got home from work but I was drained. When I got into the car the temperature outside was about 102, and by the time I’d driven home through the nightmare that is the Central Business District after four thirty in the afternoon, I was a bit worn down so wound up taking the evening off. Literally. I didn’t do a fucking thing last night (I wrote about 150 words on chapter five of the WIP) and went through my journals. I meant to read a short story, but I dozed off in my chair around eight, and finally staggered up to bed sometime between nine and ten. I do not understand why last evening turned out the way it did, but I also slept really well last night and feel very rested and together today. (I think it was primarily being drained from clients yesterday, we were busier than usual–a good thing; I’d prefer we had a full schedule–and I’ve grown unused to that much human interaction, so it made me tired.) I am not going to lambaste myself over not getting much accomplished last night; part of my “be kinder to yourself” goal of this year is to accept that I am not superhuman and will occasionally be tired, worn out, unable to work and thus need rest instead. I do not have to continue the pace of productivity I set for myself when I was younger and had more energy.

I think tonight when I get home, after I do some chores–seriously, how does one person mess up so many dishes and laundry–I’ll write for a bit and then try to get caught up on Superman and Lois, which means going back to the first episode of this season and rewatching, because I don’t remember what is going on this season. I know they replaced the actor playing Jonathan Kent, which I wasn’t thrilled about (but should give the new actor a chance; I was unimpressed with the new actor), or maybe start the third season of Titans, which I had also started and gave up after a few episodes. I mean, I love me some super-heroes, but I’m also starting to get a little burned out on them. I probably won’t watch any more Marvel movies, and I am beginning to get a bit bored with the DC movies, too. I do want to watch the next season of Loki, and I do like Superman and Lois…but it’s all starting to feel a little stale to me. Maybe I should go get caught up on my comics reading? We stopped watching both Arrow and The Flash because every episode of Arrow started to feel the same and the fight scenes became repetitive; with The Flash, it was because how many times can one person go back in time to change the past and fuck everything up for the present and then keeps doing it?

I don’t like my super-heroes to be that stupid, frankly. It’s a shame, too, because I’ve always loved the character and Grant Gustin is terrific in the part. Ah, well.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day. Constant Reader!

Say You’ll Stay Until Tomorrow

Sunday morning and we’ve survived yet another day of a heat advisory, which was miserable when I went out to get the mail and some cleaning supplies (I also got grocery store sushi for lunch, don’t you dare judge me). But I wasn’t out in it all the much, and I managed. I slept decently Friday night, woke up a few times, like always, but went to bed and slept in until seven thirty (!) before getting up and getting started on the day. I started doing a thorough cleaning of the laundry room and the kitchen in the morning (I needed more wet Swiffer pads, which was why I had to stop before running errands, and I needed other cleaning supplies as well, too), and rearranged the top of the dresser upstairs so there was room for more books, so I took my copies of the annotated Holmes up there along with some other enormous research books that don’t fit in my bookcases and had taken up residence on top of the microwave–which I then cleaned and moved the cookbooks to (because that’s where they belong, goddamnit), which pleased me inordinately. I miss Paul, of course, but the plan to keep myself busy so as to not get lonely seems to be working out so far.

Yesterday, I cleaned.

I even moved furniture and rearranged my workspace. I also discovered that I’d bought one of those Apple speaker things I can stream Spotify through, so I can have music playing while I do things–so no risk of being detoured by television or going down Youtube wormholes. I did baseboards, Constant Reader. I really need to get some Venetian blinds for this window over my desk, much as I loathe giving in finally to the loss of the crepe myrtles. The LSU blanket I tacked up in a rather pointless display of spite and vengeance that had absolutely no effect on anything other than to further enhance the “college apartment” essence we’ve apparently been going for these last few years needs to come down. I’m a grown-up, after all, and the days of using blankets for shades should have been gone years ago.

Talk about arrested development! And as usual, the only person affected by my spite is me, as always.

But it felt good to clean everything, to pick up the rugs and beat them outside, to actually sweep the floors beneath and then wash them before putting back the rugs; moving furniture to anchor the ones more prone to moving, wiping every surface down and even getting some work done in the living room, too, which was marvelous. I also discovered that I had already written a draft of the fifth chapter–I didn’t remember getting past Chapter Four (although I thought I’d already figured it out just not written it–pleasant surprise!). Also, after putting the new drafts of chapters three of four in the three ring binder for the book (because I do this for every book), I found a note scribbled on the last page of Chapter Four–something I had noticed when I was revising it, but didn’t think was a big deal–and now I need to go back and fix it. It’s minor, not a big deal, but if I don’t catch it and fix it now…I may not and whoops! Today I am going to work on the living room some and try to get some writing done. I want to revise Chapter Five, maybe finish this next draft of a short story, and maybe finish writing the first draft of another. I also need to sit down and plot out another one.

I may clean the ceiling fans. Madness. I also need to get lightbulbs, or find the ones we already have.

I also stretched yesterday and used the the back massage roller thingee, which felt great–as did the stretching. I need to stretch more regularly; seriously. It only takes about five minutes, feels great, and always gives me a jolt of energy whenever I do it. And it’s good for me and a healthy thing to do, so why do I never think about doing it? Or why do I think about it and then just shrug it off? Perhaps someday I will understand, but it’s doubtful at this point.

I slept really well again last night, waking up relatively early this morning, which is good as I plan on having a productive day. This morning I plan to do some more cleaning, read some more, and then write all afternoon if possible. My coffee is definitely hitting the spot this morning and tasting marvelous, and here’s hoping this motivation carries through the day, shall we?

I did finish watching The History of Sitcoms last night, which I did enjoy somewhat, I could probably write an entire entry dissecting the episode about class, and the success CBS had in the 1960’s essentially stereotyping the South and Southern people with shows like The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, and Petticoat Junction, among others. But the first two shows (I watched Petticoat Junction growing up, but don’t remember anything about it; the other two I remember very clearly) were actually a lot more clever that critics of the time thought–they were dismissed as very lowbrow humor, but they said a lot about class and were also kind of stinging indictments of American capitalism, mythology, and the class strictures we faced as a nation. (It was interesting that these shows about rural Southern people never address race; Granny on The Beverly Hillbillies still believed the Civil War was still on-going–she was in denial about the loss, I guess; which is certainly problematic when seen through a more evolved and modern perspective.)

I plan on finishing the downstairs today–which means the ceiling fans, or at least trying to get them cleaned; I can only reach so far with my ladder (I should have bought a six foot instead of a five foot all those years ago) but I think I can reach the blades of the fans…or at least I can change out the lightbulbs that are blown out. Then I can spend the rest of this week keeping the downstairs under control as I start working on the upstairs.

I also read two more chilling Alfred Hitchcock Presents tales, this time from Stories That Scared Even Me, “Men Without Bones” by Gerald Kersh and “Not With a Bang” by Damon Knight. I enjoyed both stories, despite having no clue about either author (these old anthologies do not include author biographies in the back, which is a rather disappointing oversight). Kersh apparently wrote the book Night and the City and lots of short stories; Harlan Ellison considered him one of his favorite writers, and “Men Without Bones” was certainly a chilling story, about a man who boards a banana boat hoping desperately for passage back to the United States, who then tells of a chilling voyage deep into the jungle to look for proof of alien visitation years ago when mankind was still in its infancy (which was a very popular trope when I was a kid; Erich von Däniken’s work was selling hundreds of thousands of copies in multiple languages); there is a very dark twist at the end of the already dark story that was rather jolting. Damon Knight was a very popular science fiction writer of the post-war period; I’ve not heard of any of his novels (he was named a Grand Master by SFWA, which he helped found; he was also very prolific as a short story writer, and he wrote the story “To Serve Man,” which became one of the more famous episodes of the original Twilight Zone. One of the things I am enjoying most about reading these old anthologies is learning about great writers of the past who may not be as well-known today as they were in their time; it sometimes makes me wonder if forty years from now some gay mystery writer could be reading old anthologies from this time and discover me? “Not With a Bang” is a post-apocalyptic story about the last two humans left alive–a man and a woman–but the woman’s experiences and what she witnessed as the world came to an end has kind of fried her brain; she cannot really process what happened and it sent her back to a rather prim-like mental state from earlier in her life; she refuses to have sex with the only man left alive unless they are married–but they cannot be married as there’s no one left alive to perform the ceremony. It’s never very clear if the man is so anxious to fuck her because he wants to repopulate the world or if its sexual anxiety and frustration; but he’s not a very good person and he also has caught the post-nuclear plague that wiped out everything the bombs and the fallout didn’t get; one of the symptoms is essentially losing the ability to move or speak and falling into a coma-like state that can be reversed with medication he has stockpiled…but once she has agreed to marry him and we realize that he’s not just frustrated with her–he’s not a good person and he plans to abuse her and be dreadful to her…and chillingly thinks and she could have a daughter…before he goes into a bathroom and freezes into the coma…with the door shut behind him and he’s lost the ability to speak.

These old macabre tales with their eerie twists at the end are probably–I am seeing now–the biggest influences I ever had with my short story writing. I still try to end my stories with a surprising twist, and that has everything to do with reading these anthologies when I was a teenager, watching Night Gallery and reruns of The Twilight Zone (as well as the reboot in the 1980s, which aired one of my favorite episodes of television of all time; a teleplay based on Harlan Ellison’s brilliant story–one of my favorites of all time–“Paladin of the Lost Hour”); these were the same influences Stephen King counts. I also read the horror/suspense comics a lot as a kid, House of Secrets, House of Mystery, Tales from the Crypt and The Witching Hour, among others; there were also little digests for Ripley’s Believe It or Not and other macabre comic tales. Apparently, you’re never too old to remember influences or learn more about yourself.

And on that note, I am going to go spend some more time with Kelly J. Ford’s marvelous The Hunt, and I will check in with you again later, Constant Reader. Have a lovely Sunday!

Way Down

Saturday in the Lost Apartment, and I am feeling relaxed and good. I had a nice day yesterday, the apartment got more work done on it, and I managed to get everything done that needed doing yesterday. I didn’t really write much last night, but I did read some marvelously macabre short stories, which was lovely, and then watched a few episodes of a CNN documentary series, The History of Sitcoms, which is interesting enough, and feeds into that nostalgia thing we are so prone to as a society. I’ve witnessed any number of nostalgia booms throughout the course of my many years on this speck of dust under the fingernails of God we call earth, and while I am not entirely immune to the appeal of nostalgia, I also recognize that we inevitably remember those past times fondly and perhaps not as accurately as we may think. The 1950’s nostalgia boom of the 1970s, for example, spawned American Graffiti and Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley and eventually Grease; reignited interest in the music of the time (anyone remember Sha Na Na?); as well as sock hops and poodle skirts and “Ch**ese fire drills”* (which is probably racist, isn’t it?) and all that stuff; like Archie comics were documentaries rather than fictions. But the 1950s weren’t this idyllic time of peace and quiet and prosperity people seem to think it was, brainwashed by decades of sitcom reruns of shows that presented the United States back to itself as a fantasy, a fiction, and created an unrealistic vision and interpretation of what perfection and success were in a land of opportunity–an unrealistic vision that has somehow come to be taken as a reality when it was never anything more than a fantasy. That’s the danger of nostalgia.

It’s not that I oppose nostalgia, or don’t understand it–we always tend to idealize our childhoods, and the time period when we were children. It isn’t that it was actually an easier, simpler time, it’s just that when you’re a child you aren’t worried about or concerned with the things adults are contending with–so you don’t remember those parts. I do remember being a child, with rioting going on and protests and police violence; I remember the murders of RFK, Dr. King, and Malcolm X. I remember the struggle over the Vietnam War. I remember Watergate, and all the scandals of the Reagan administration modern Republicans have completely forgotten about (or if they do remember them, they remember them as “evil liberals conspiring to bring down St. Ronald–who they would calla RINO today. I can’t imagine Reagan being fond of DeSantis, Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio; but who knows? They remember the 1980s as their ‘golden age,’ so who knows what Reagan would be like today–although I can’t imagine him sucking up to Putin). For me, the 1980’s was about HIV/AIDS and the struggle to come to terms with myself and who I am. The 1980’s also showed me that homophobes literally wanted all queer people to die…and I do not believe the modern day iteration of them is any different than they were thirty or forty years ago. Their messaging is the same, after all–we must save our children from groomers and pedophiles while actually ignoring who the actual grooming pedophiles are–youth ministers, priests, and pastors of their religious faith.

Nostalgia can be incredibly dangerous. Here’s the question I’d like to ask everyone who longs to go back to that “simpler” time of the 1950’s/1960’s: where were all the black people in Mayberry, NORTH CAROLINA? Are we supposed to believe that a small town in the South was entirely white?

Bitch, please.

As I said earlier, I did spend some time last evening reading short stories from my Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthologies. “A Death in the Family” by Miriam Allen deFord was quite macabre and interesting, about a lonely mortician who grew up as a foster child with no family who creates his own, only to be tripped up in his macabre game when a dead kidnapping victim is dumped on the front steps of his mortuary. Very tightly written and composed, I also like the clever way deFord set the story up to deceive the reader until there’s a big reveal. This story was in Stories That Scared Even Me, and I enjoyed it. I also read some more stories in My Favorites in Suspense: “My Unfair Lady” by Guy Cullingford; “New Murders for Old” by Carter Dickson; and “Terrified” by C. B. Gilford. Carter Dickson was a pseudonym for John Dickson Carr, a very prolific and popular crime writer of the mid-twentieth century; I’d seen books by either name on the racks when I was a kid but I’d never read any of his work. I really liked “New Murders for Old,” a clever story about murder for gain with a complicated twist that I greatly enjoyed–but wouldn’t work in the modern day because it was dependent on someone traveling being out of touch with the rest of his world back home. “Terrified” is a chilling tale of the aftermath of a car accident, where the survivors in one car can’t decide whether or not to kill the dying victim who can counter their testimony about who was at fault, and “My Unfair Lady” is a chilling tale of a sociopathic child who witnesses a murder, and whether she will clear the name of the innocent man who found the body and is the leading suspect, a bit reminiscent of The Bad Seed, which of course is a suspense classic.

I didn’t do as much cleaning and organizing as I had hoped to do, but I did launder all the bed linens and finished the dishes. The kitchen still needs some work done on it, which I think I’ll most likely do this morning once I get this finished and posted. I plan on writing and reading and cleaning for most of the day, but I do have to run an errand later this morning–my copy of Angel Luis Colon’s new juvenile horror novel, Infested, was delivered yesterday, and I also need to determine whether or not I need to stop and make groceries as well. I am low on a couple of things, but I don’t think I actually need a whole lot of anything. I have been enjoying yellow-meat watermelons lately; a relic of my childhood summers in rural Alabama that I’ve never really seen out of that context or anywhere else. Rouse’s sells them now–personal sized and seedless–but it’s been my experience that the personal-sized seedless watermelons don’t taste as good as regular watermelons and have very little flavor of any kind. The last time we went to Costco (we need to go again once Paul gets home) we’d bought two of the personal-sized seedless red ones; they come in a net bag in pairs. Those watermelons were two of the best I’d had in I don’t know how long, so this week I took the plunge and bought one of the yellow ones this week. Constant Reader, it was delicious, if not the best watermelon I’ve had in years. I finished it off last night, but had bought another the other day. So, I think one of my chores for this morning is to clean out the kitchen cupboards, and throwing shit away so I can determine what exactly I need and if I do, in fact, need to stop at the grocery store when I go get the mail.

I also binged the second season of Heartstopper, which was absolutely delightful and charming, as I expected, even as it entered the darker territory the books dealt with. It’s still incredibly sweet, and it handles the darker turns much better than I could have hoped; the books certainly did, even as the darker material made you love and root for the characters more, it’s still a bit heartbreaking because I love those kids so much (Nick, Charlie, Tara, Darcy, Elle, Tao, and Isaac) that I want to wrap them up and protect them from the world. As I watch, I sometimes wonder what it would have been like to see a show like Heartstopper when I was a teenager…at what an incredible difference something like this could have made in my life, which is why shows like this are so fucking important. I just hate that they only give us eight short episodes per season–and yes, Olivia Colman is back as Nick’s mom. (One change from the books to the show I don’t like–while I understand it–was the elimination of Charlie and Tori’s younger brother. Sure, he’s not necessary, as the show proves, but I think the way he reacts to Charlie and Nick, and how much he loves them, would be kind of lovely, if not needed.)

I also thought about the book some, as well as reading all those short stories have helped give me some ideas about my own short stories in progress, and how to fix and finish some of them. I would love to get two chapters of the book written this weekend and to finish two short stories, but I don’t know. I’ll probably wind up feeling lazy and spending more time reading than I should, and of course, I have the new iteration of Real Housewives of New York to finish, as well as the third season of Superman and Lois, and My Adventures with Superman, but I am going to try to put off watching television until weeknights, when I am tired from being at work.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. I need another cup of coffee, and I should put the clean dishes away. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back at some point!

**It is racist: I checked on wikipedia: “Public use of the phrase has been considered to be offensive and racist. In 2017 a candidate for office in Nova Scotia, Matt Whitman, apologized for using the term in a video and subsequently removed the video.[10] In 2020, Washington state Senator Patty Kuderer made an apology for using the term in a hearing; Linda Yang of Washington Asians for Equality stated that the term was racist and filed a complaint with the state.[11] Kuderer apologized before any formal complaint was filed.” There’s an entire history of how the term began and how it was used, but I have found if a term or a phrase that’s a part of the popular culture references a group of people or an ethnicity or a race, it’s usually not a good thing; in this case, it means something useless–and let’s face it, everyone getting out of the car and running around it while stopped at a red light is pretty stupid and useless.

It’s a Heartache

Thursday morning, and my first night spent alone here has passed. It’s so eerie and quiet around here without Paul and Scooter. It’s also weird having that big old bed to myself–Paul is rarely, if ever, not home; I’m the one who’s always traveling–and of course, the apartment always grows exponentially in size somehow when it’s just me in the house. Go figure, right? But I hope to get some things done around the house–I can, for example, spend an entire day upstairs on the weekend cleaning, using Paul’s computer to work on and I can stream stuff through the television upstairs while I clean and organize and try to get it into some semblance of order. I can also work on the downstairs every night and over the weekend, etc. I always plan to get a lot done and I inevitably end up not getting a lot done, which is part of my perpetuation of me being incompetent and lazy and so on; make so many plans there’s no way in hell you can complete them all even if you’re super motivated and driven, and thus can castigate myself once again as a lazy loser.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

So, I am planning on making the best of being a temporary widow. I am not going to be a slug, and I don’t have Scooter’s demands for a lap to sleep in to blame it on, either. SO THERE ARE NO EXCUSES. I doubt very seriously that Paul will come home to an apartment so sparkling clean and organized he’ll think he’s in the wrong house, but I can certainly make it all look better at any rate. I may even move furniture. I know, madness, right?

Stranger things have happened. And will again!

I was mostly productive last night; I decided to not really do a whole lot of anything much more than chores. I did several loads of laundry and several loads of dishes, picked things up, reorganized a bit and wiped things down–one would almost think I was on a very strict and tight deadline or something. I had a few pleasant down moments, because when doing laundry and loads of dishes sometimes you have to wait–and there’s not the time to start watching something or writing something, so it’s short little videos on Youtube time, and avoiding wormholes there is sometimes difficult, but it wasn’t last night. I spent some time moving and organizing computer files, and frankly, it was a nice and easy relaxing evening. I got things done, didn’t get sidetracked, and made a great start on the thorough cleaning the apartment needs. I am probably going to spend the weekend mostly working on the upstairs, because we are having work done on the downstairs; when I got home last night there was an enormous ladder and some other tools and things in the living room; and the work on repairing the walls had begun. I have no idea how long that is going to take, but obviously, there isn’t much point to doing a lot of work in the living room while that is happening. And…being forced to focus on the kitchen, laundry room, attic, and upstairs isn’t a bad thing at all. I can always take plug a flash drive into Paul’s computer and write while I am up there working, too.

The theory here is staying busy will keep me from feeling lonely or missing Paul and Scooter. (We really need to get a cat as soon as he gets back, seriously.) Hopefully tonight when I get home from work (and running errands) I can work on the book and do some more cleaning and/or organizing. I may even try to repair that wobbly drawer myself. The file cabinet itself needs a serious purge, as do some of the file boxes I have accumulated around the apartment in my tragic paper hoarding need. As I was looking around at the books last night and thinking about the next serious pruning, I kept coming across books where I would think at first oh, that can go, I’ll never read that again but as I reached for it remembered, oh yes, you wanted to read that because its hardboiled crime fiction set in Los Angeles in the same period as Chlorine is set, and there was a really horrific scene where a gay man is abused by the cops, and that could be helpful in getting into the mindset of how MY queer characters would view the LAPD in that period and so I moved on to the next book on the shelf. It was literally funny how almost every book in my apartment, on my shelves or yes, in the stacks on the floor, I could remember a distinct reason for wanting to read the book and in many cases, it involved writing something; whether a short story, a novel, or an essay about themes or characters or whatever within the book, there was some writing-related reason I wanted to read that book for the first time, or in some cases, like The Lords of Discipline or The Last Picture Show, for maybe the fiftieth time because I wanted to revisit it and see how I felt about it now, at this point in my life as a reader.

I’ve been trying to remember my influences, the cultural moments that resonated or impacted me in some way that changed the way I write because my perspectives had also changed. I recently acquired a copy of a juvenile mystery I remember reading, either from the library or from buying a copy at the Scholastic Book Fair, which I lived for when I was a kid, because I wanted to read it again–and already, just from seeing the image of the original cover and reading the description, I can still remember details from a book I read over fifty years ago; and those were the mysteries I read before I found the series mystery books for kids; once I started with the series, that was all I read…before moving onto novels for adults, which I read voraciously. I’ve talked about and written about books that I loved reading when I was a kid or a teenager, books that made an impression on me in some way and that I remember very fondly, like The Thorn Birds or Green Darkness or The Other Side of Midnight, and sometimes I wish I had the time to go back and revisit those books–but there is so little time and those books are all so long. Everything back then seemed to be incredibly long–The Winds of War, everything by James Michener, Captains and the Kings, Rich Man Poor Man, and even Dress Gray, the West Point murder mystery I always wanted to reread back to back with The Lords of Discipline. Genre fiction–mysteries, romance, scifi–were shorter books as a general rule. Even Harold Robbins wrote some door-stoppers of novels, like The Carpetbaggers and A Stone for Danny Fisher. Irving Wallace churned out incredibly lengthy books that ultimately really were thrillers at their beating heart; Irving Stone mastered the historical biography; and Irwin Shaw also wrote novels the size of leviathans.

And somehow I managed to read them all.

I am not the voracious reader I was when I was younger and had more energy and somehow more time (no cell phone or Internet, more like), and I also read a lot faster than I do now. Heavy sigh. But today is the last day in the office of the week for me, and the last time this week I have to get up this early–I did wake up several times during the night, but I feel rested this morning, if a little spacy–and that’s very nice.

And on that final note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, everyone, and I’ll check in with you again later.

The Wurlitzer Prize (I Don’t Want to Get Over You)

And here we are on yet another Pay-the-Bills Wednesday. Paul is leaving today, and won’t be back until a week from Saturday. I also don’t have Scooter for cuddles and company. Will I go mad living under conditions of absolute reality? Even larks and katydids are believed by some to dream.

Yesterday was a much better day than I’ve had in quite some time, all things considered. I slept incredibly well, so didn’t start off my day either sleepy or groggy or tired, which is always a plus. The work day was relatively low-key; we were slow in the morning but busy in the afternoon, and frankly, I prefer it that way; busy in the morning inevitably means tired in the afternoon, and if we’re so it’s agony. But over all, a good day at the office and an auspicious beginning to the month of August. (I also didn’t note that it was the anniversary of both of our moves to New Orleans; first in 1996, then again on August 1 2001 when we moved back home from That Horrible Year Away.)

I ran errands on my way home–mail, prescriptions, groceries–and then came home to a sink full of dirty dishes which needed attention, so I took care of that as well as another load of laundry, and then sat my ample buttocks into my desk chair and banged out the revision of Chapter 3 I’d been stuck on for a little less than a week (not so much stuck as tired and didn’t want to bother with it, in brutal honesty) and got it finished and under control before moving onto Chapter Four. I also worked on “Whim of the Wind” for a little while, and also did some more research into the history of the city I am fictionalizing for the WIP, which I continue to fail to discuss. Perhaps this weekend? Perhaps. I kind of want to see if I can get past Chapter 4 before I talk about the book publicly, but that’s nothing more than my own superstitions, which is pretty stupid. As a general rule I don’t believe in things like jinxes and curses and so forth, but I do believe you can actually speak things into existence sometimes. The only takeaway I got from Psych 101 in college was the concept of visualization; that picturing something in your mind can make it happen–but not like winning the powerball or anything like that, but more along the lines of why you always spill something full when you’re carrying it no matter how careful you are…because your mind cannot picture a negative–you can’t see yourself not spilling it; so when you think about not spilling it, you will because you see yourself in your mind actually spilling it. (It’s like how you cannot prove a negative–you can rarely prove you aren’t something; but it is incredibly easy to prove you are. I use this example: someone drinks a lot. They don’t think they have a problem, they don’t wake up in the morning feeling like death warmed over twice and wanting another drink. But once someone says, “You have a drinking problem”, you can’t prove that you don’t. You can say you aren’t, but that’s denial. You can stop drinking for a time period—but if you start drinking again, well, there, you see, you were in recovery and then relapsed! You cannot win, so why bother trying?) It is much harder to prove something isn’t true than it is proving something is. Guilt is the same way–how do you convince the cops, who are convinced you are, that you aren’t?

I will say this about the WIP–it’s more hardboiled and noir than what I usually write, I am having a lot of fun with it, and it’s been a long time since I wrote anything set in Florida, if I ever have? Dark Tide started as a Florida panhandle novel, but I moved it to the Alabama coast; “Cold Beer No Flies” was a panhandle story, too. But this is me fictionalizing Tampa–come to think of it, my main character in The Orion Mask lived in a fictional Tampa I am using again for this one–and I’ve not set foot in Tampa, other than flying in and out for Bouchercon in St. Petersburg, since I moved away in December 1995 to once again reboot and restart my life.

I was tired after all my errands yesterday–the thermostat in my car let me know it was 101 when I left the office yesterday; it is insane for it to be that hot, even in New Orleans. It’s exhausting dealing with this insane summer heat this year. But I did get some writing done yesterday, which was a good thing, and of course Paul finished packing. Heavy heaving sigh. Ah, well, I have Superman and Lois to catch up on, and My Adventures with Superman, and so many old classic films to watch, so I shouldn’t have any trouble keeping myself entertained so I don’t feel lonely or bored. And of course I could be writing, which is always difficult in August…I also think about how about eighteen years ago I was finishing (finally) Mardi Gras Mambo at long last in that last, fateful August before Katrina. It really was a completely different world all those years ago; maybe I ‘ll go back and read those old Livejournal entries from August of 2005, so I can remember the world before once again. I also have a lot of reading to get caught up on, as well. I have some errands to run this evening on the way home from work, and then I am going to be inside for the night. We did watch another episode of Gotham Knights last night–very intense, as the season finale moves closer–but now I have to wait for Paul to come home to finish. Heavy heaving sigh.

But perhaps I’ll use all this solitude productively. One never knows, and on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.

Tishbite

And suddenly it’s Sunday, and I go back to the office tomorrow. Paul leaves on Wednesday for ten days, so Wednesday night is going to feel really weird and off when I get home from work. No cat, no Paul, and that has the potential to be incredibly sad and lonely, if I allow it to go that way. I don’t think I’ll be able to manage just goofing off when I get home from work while he’s gone; not to mention the time we usually spend together every night. I will most likely finish watching My Adventures with Superman while he’s gone, and I’ll probably watch Heels on Starz, with Stephen Amell; obviously, it’s a drama series built around a local wrestling promotion–and since my current WIP does the same (it’s not about the promotion, but the promotion plays a part in the book), it couldn’t hurt to watch, right? I just have to be careful not to steal, er “borrow”, anything from the show. (I doubt I will; the promotion is really back story more than anything else.)

But yeah, next weekend is going to be weird as shit around here. I’ll have to get used to sleeping alone–always an issue for me; changes to sleeping situations never are particularly easy for me to adapt to, ever–and without Scooter to cuddle up next to me in the bed, it’ll be particularly lonely. Ah, well.

I started reading Kelly J. Ford’s The Hunt yesterday, and I have to say wow. From the very first page she pulls you into the story, and the authorial voice! Magnificent. I still haven’t read Real Bad Things, her previous novel, yet; I don’t want to not have another book by her to read (my usual author-fan neurosis kicking into gear) but I am also thinking I may read it on the plane to Bouchercon, depending on how far along I am with my TBR pile by then–I have, after all, books by Eli Cranor, S. A. Cosby, Alison Gaylin, Laura Lippman, and Michael Koryta to get through yet as well–but with Paul gone, I will either be reading or writing every night when I get home from the office, so maybe I can get a lot of this reading caught up on. I also want to read this original text version of The Mark on the Door (The Hardy Boys) so I can write about it, too. I was also thinking it might not be a bad idea to take some of these really old blog posts I never finished and copy them into Word documents…because they really are longer form personal essays that require more work than just what I think off the top of my head–I actually have to look things up and do research to be effective, and I can save them in a folder called blog essays so I know where they are when and if I decide to ever look at them or try to finish them because it bothers me that I have all these unfinished drafts saved on the blog–many of which I tend to forget about until I’m reminded when I see the draft, which isn’t exactly conducive to finishing it. There’s one particularly old one where I wanted to read and talk about Uncle Tom’s Cabin, probably one of the most famous books ever published in this country and one that actually effected societal change…but it’s undoubtedly, from the modern lens, incredibly problematic, which is why I wanted to read it. I also have an electronic copy of The Clansman, which is the book Birth of a Nation was based upon, which clearly is a problematical text; perhaps someday I can do a lengthy personal essay about both of those books, along with Gone with the Wind, in the context of the Lost Cause mythology I was raised to believe (never really did because I could never get past the evil that was chattel slavery, no matter how much any of the latter two authors tried to convince their readers that it was benevolent and better for the enslaved than freedom…even typing that, I can’t wrap my mind around the fact people believe that bullshit, or even more insanely, some still clearly do).

I also spent some time doing research into Filipino immigration to Louisiana (because I am looking into writing about them) in the eighteenth century as escapees from enslavement on Spanish galleons in the Gulf of Mexico. Louisiana truly is the melting pot I was taught growing up as a part of American exceptionalism; Louisiana had immigrants from all over the world and from every imaginable “race” (which is not biology but a social construct, and no one will ever convince me otherwise), from the Isleños from the Canary Islands to the Filipinos who settled at St. Malo just off the coast-line on the opposite shore of Lake Borgne from New Orleans–I am also interested in the idea that there was also a settlement of escaped formerly enslaved people in the East called “maroons”–not to mention the enslaved people brought here unwillingly from west Africa as well as the Caribbean islands. Europeans were well represented here by French, English, and Spanish; Jews also came over in the eighteenth century, as well as Germans (There’s a town called Des Allemandes–the Germans–on the west bank of the Mississippi, and an entire stretch of the river called the German Coast), and of course there are Cajuns, Armenians, Greeks and Americans, too. There is a quite large Vietnamese immigrant community in New Orleans East, too. I’ve always felt New Orleans had a darkness to her; the slave trade flourished here (New Orleans was what they meant by being “sold south” or “sold down the river”–and it was so bad those words and phrases were considered threats)…which also reminds me I should revisit Barbara Hambly’s Benjamin January series, which I always recommend to people interested in reading about New Orleans and its history. All of the former slave states have a darkness to them, which is what I am exploring in my Alabama and Louisiana researches on now; how to incorporate that theme, of the suffering embedded in the blood-soaked soil and how so many souls cannot possibly be at rest.

That’s kind of what my revision of this nearly forty year old short story is becoming, and that’s kind of why I am stuck in the part I am at now; when the two boys are told the Civil War legend about the ghost of the cemetery. The original story was one that has since turned out to be apocryphal, a story my grandmother told me as truth when I was a child. I have found an equally bloody and horrifying legend based in the actual grisly history of the region from whence I sprang, and I am trying to get the tone right. I think the man telling the story to the boys would not have been a Union sympathizer but a Lost Cause believer, which makes telling the story and getting the tone right much more difficult. I think I’ve figured out the way to do it right–I don’t really care if Lost Cause sympathizers are ever offended by my writings about the South, to be perfectly clear if it wasn’t already–but I am of course worried that I’ll blow it so had to rest my brain and think about it some more yesterday. I also scribbled some backstory on my main character for the book I just started writing in my journal, which was very cool. After getting the mail and the groceries yesterday I was just drained–the heat really can suck the life right out of you–and so I just sheltered in the apartment and did some cleaning and organizing and thinking, really.

We watched two movies, Renfield and They Cloned Tyrone, both of which were quite enjoyable but completely different. I wasn’t so sure about Renfield, which I assumed was simply a modern take on the Dracula story from Renfield’s point of view, which I thought was a clever idea–but I didn’t realize it was intended to be a comedy. The female lead is Awkwafina–which I did not know and didn’t see her once in any preview of the movie I ever saw, which was some peculiar marketing. I wouldn’t have even thought twice about watching the film had I known she was in it–and she was amazing, as always. I am really becoming a fan. They Cloned Tyrone was a tech horror movie, filmed like a 70’s blaxploitation film, and it was interesting and clever and really smart (although part of it reminded me very much of an Edgar award winning novel from a few years ago that I loved) and we really enjoyed it before watching some more Nora from Queens before turning it in for the evening.

Today I am going to get cleaned up a bit, get ready for the week and do some writing. I want to get this short story revision completed as well as taking another shot at revising the third chapter of the WIP. I do need to do some more straightening and organizing–as always–and there’s a load of dishes in the dishwasher that need putting away. I am feeling better rested, which is lovely, and I am hoping to carry that energy, along with some positivity, into this new week. I do have some errands that will need to be run this week, alas, but I think most nights I’m probably just going to come straight home from work and either read or write or clean and organize. There will of course be nights when I am horribly lazy and won’t do a thing, but I am getting bored with being lazy and am feeling like I need to be producing in one way or another–making myself useful in my spare time. That of course is a neurosis in and of itself; the refusal to accept and allow myself to have down time where I am not doing something or anything or even thinking; sometimes I just need to mindlessly go down Youtube wormholes for the evening, and sometimes I even learn something when I do.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday however you choose to spend it, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again later.

Ups

Saturday morning in ye olde Lost Apartment. Yesterday was a productive one, yet I was tired. I slept better Thursday night than I had all week, and yet… tired, emotionally, intellectually, and physically. I got my work done, though, managed to get laundry and dishes taken care of, and finished page proofing. I was watching (listening) to a documentary on MAX about DC Comics (which was essentially a three hour informerical about DC entertainment–comics, movies, games, graphic novels, television shows, etc.), which I kind of enjoyed besides the obvious puff piece approach. They were brutally honest about bad decisions and down-turns in popularity, as well as the insane boom of the early 1990’s with the collectors’ stuff. I had that on while I page-proofed, and it was interesting. I’ve always been a DC guy (who has nothing but respect and admiration for Marvel; I love Spider-Man), so seeing all the previous incarnations of the heroes and the stories as they evolved and changed over the years. They did, in fact, bring up the weird period where Wonder Woman gave up her powers and just became Diana Prince, which was also the same period where Supergirl was poisoned and her powers came and went; were no longer reliable, so they dreamed up some tech to help her out when her powers failed her. I was already planning on writing about DC again, thanks to the breaking news of the casting of the new Superman and because I’ve started watching the animated series My Adventures with Superman, which I am loving. We also finished The Crowded Room (a bit disappointing overall, I think) and watched the new Minx as well as some more Awkwafina is Nora from Queens.

It was extremely hot yesterday and I did not go outside. Even with the air conditioning on, I could tell everything outside was roasting. The air had that weird texture to it still, like it was almost scorched a bit from the heat. Today we have extreme heat advisory from eleven to seven, and I am considering not running my errands today if I can’t get it done this morning. I don’t want to be out in that if I don’t have to be, and if I do, at a time when it isn’t terrible outside. It is definitely the hottest summer I can remember in my life–and I do not just think that ever year and this year is no different. This year is VERY different, so hot it’s almost scary. The water in the Gulf is so hot, how can that be good for aquatic life? For the ecosystems of the shorelines? How hot are the rivers and lakes and creeks and streams? I have to run the cold water tap for quite a while every day before the water actually cools down to merely lukewarm. It’s very easy to get dehydrated, and it’s very easy to get heat exhaustion. Seriously, people, if you have to be out in this today, make sure you stay hydrated and out of the sun as much as possible. I also think it can’t be good for the car to be operating in this heat, either. But people in places like Palm Springs and Arizona drive and go out into the heat when it’s 114 or more outside. Maybe it’s just my natural anxiety, I don’t know. There’s always something to be anxious about.

Today I want to get some writing done. I want to finish revising that short story and I want to try to get that next chapter of the WIP revised as well. I may even try to write a story for a deadline in a few days, but even I am not arrogant as to think I can write a story that can get through an anonymous read in just three days. I also want to read a bit, and I want to work some more on the shelves in the laundry room. There’s just so many books, and I know I need to keep pruning. I need to be brutal and heartless, but so much I want to read and still think, hoping forlornly, that I will get to them…even as I buy more and more and read less and less. My mind is kind of all over the place right now, as it usually is when I don’t have something to focus on fully. Deadlines do impose some a forced focus onto me, but they also bring anxiety with them and I really don’t want to deal with any more anxiety right now, you know? Why invite chaos in, when you know damned well there will be anxiety no matter how much you convince yourself that this time it will be different? (It never is.) This love/hate relationship I have with writing is something I was actually thinking about yesterday as I put clean sheets on the bed. I was thinking that there are definitely parts of this I love–I love the creative aspects, I love working it all out in my brain, I love creating the characters and setting the mood and finding the voice. I enjoy revisions, too, but the element of despair is always added to the process when you are doing the revisions. By the time you’re doing what you hope is a final polish with almost every error excised or string tied up, you are heartily sick of the book, the characters, the story, writing in general and wondering why you ever thought you could do this, and would it really be that horrible a loss if you just walked away from it all? Then you hold your breath and click send, and then the agony of waiting starts, with all its paranoid imposter syndrome spirals and fears that this is the time you wrote something for which there is no editorial hope.

I mean, that happens every time I write a book, whether it’s on a deadline or not. The additional stress of the ticking clock a deadline adds to the entire process is what I’m getting to the point now where I can’t handle it or at least would prefer not to at the moment. I kind of just want to enjoy this moment where there’s no writing pressure and I can just work on stuff without being stressed about it at all, enjoy the process and the writing and creating itself. This is, after all, what I love about doing this. So why not do it under circumstances where I can savor the experience and enjoy myself? I mean, I do love writing, and I think I should be able to enjoy myself doing something I love all the time rather than being stressed out and anxious about it.

And I am enjoying writing again, being creative, feeling like yes I’m an author again, which is nice and frankly, a feeling I’ve missed. And it isn’t that things are so much better now than they were by any means, it’s just that now I don’t have to try to cram things into every day. Our civilization is crumbling around us and the world is on fire, but I don’t have to rush for anything other than being on time for work–and that I can live with. It seems wrong to be so calm and settled while the world is burning and our government is collapsing, but there it is.

I’ve always been selfish.

I slept well last night. I did wake up a couple of times, including the always every night five and six am wakes, which was just as annoying as it always is, but managed to go back to sleep both times and not get up until eight, which was really nice. I feel a lot more rested this morning than I have all week–naturally on a day when I don’t have to go to the office–and I am probably going to go ahead and run those errands today and get them out of the way. If I am making groceries, I don’t necessarily have to get the mail today; I can go to another grocery store rather than all the way uptown, for instance, and I do have to swing through Midcity on Monday to pick up a prescription, so I might as well do the mail that day anyway. I have other prescriptions that will also be ready in Uptown by Monday as well, so might just do a grocery run today and get that out of the way and then stay indoors as much as possible the rest of the day. It’s also kind of hard to believe Bouchercon is looming, as is my birthday. I made a to-do list this week, but I am so out of practice with using one that I never look at it anymore once it’s made and I need to stop doing that.

I am going to start reading Kelly J. Ford’s The Hunt this weekend, and I’d also like to watch some more of My Adventure with Superman. I should probably also finish that blog entry on Superman and his evolution on film/television over the years, and how I will go to my grave a Superman fan. I may also finish Hi Honey I’m Homo by Matt Baume this week, giving me the opportunity to move on to another non-fiction tome, and will also need to post a review of it. And of course there are other entries I need to finish as well. Someday I will be caught up on this blog, you’ll see, Constant Reader!

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for now. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and stay hydrated and be cautious in this heat because I would miss you.

Evangeline

One of the great joys of my life has always been history. One of the many reasons I love New Orleans so much is because the city has never completely paved over and replaced its history; on a foggy night in the French Quarter, the sound of mules pulling tour carriage clopping on the streets can make you feel like you’ve somehow stepped through a window into the past, and I love that. I’ve never known much beyond some basics of New Orleans and Louisiana history; and I’ve been going down rabbit holes since right around the start of the pandemic, learning more and more about the history here. It’s humbling to realize how little I actually did know. I knew when the French arrived; I know how English Turn got its name and when Louisiana was turned over to Spain (1763, to be exact) and when it became American (1803). I also know Napoleon sold Louisiana to the Americans before he succeeded in forcing the Spanish to return it to France….so he could sell it to the Americans. I know New Orleans fell to the Union in 1862 during the Civil War; I know a little bit about Storyville and Huey Long; and I know that the landing boats used for the Normandy invasion in World War II in 1944 were built here. I know a smattering of things post-war about New Orleans–but the gaps in my knowledge are staggering, and I know even less about the rest of the state’s history.

I know that the Cajuns are actually Acadians, from French Nova Scotia, kicked out after the French and Indian War and forced to resettle elsewhere–many of them, after a long and mostly horrific journey, arrived in the swampy wetlands of Louisiana and made their home here. I know that Longfellow’s epic poem “Evangeline”, about two lovers tragically separated during what is called le grande derangement–the Great Expulsion–who promise to find each other once they reach Louisiana. It’s a tragic poem, and of course the Evangeline Oak in St. Martinsville is supposedly the”place” that the fictional lovers finally found each other after so many years, but their pairing was simply not meant to be–the story is a tragedy, after all–but that was how the “Cajuns” came to be Louisianans, and even after they arrived it wasn’t easy for them here. The Creoles of New Orleans looked down their aristocratic noses at the lower class farmers, and so they settled in the part of Louisiana still known as Acadiana to this day.

I have a copy of Evangeline somewhere. I really should read it.

One of these years, I am going to explore my state more. I’ve lived in Louisiana now for almost twenty-seven years, and I’ve never done much in terms of exploration, sight-seeing, and research. The Atchafalaya Basin fascinates me, as does Acadiana. The more I read about the history of both New Orleans and Louisiana, the more I realize how little I know (I always laughed off being called a “New Orleans expert,” because there’s literally a library filled with information about the past of both the city and the state to completely humble me and make me realize I know actually very little about either, and definitely do not qualify to be called expert on anything Louisiana.

I’ve slowly started writing about the rest of Louisiana, but I often fictionalize the places I write about; they are loosely based on the reality but I get to play around with that sort of thing and that’s better for me than trying to write about the real places and making it all up. My first time outside of New Orleans writing about Louisiana was really Bourbon Street Blues, when Scotty is kidnapped by the bad guys and winds up deep in a swamp. “Rougarou” was when I came up with a fictional town and parish outside of New Orleans, which I’ve used since then again. Need had portions that were set in the rural parishes outside of the New Orleans metropolitan area. The Orion Mask and Murder in the Arts District also were heavily reliant on being set (at least partially) in a fictional parish between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. “Solace in a Dying Hour” is another one of these stories. Oh, and Baton Rouge Bingo also had a lot of action outside of New Orleans as well.

I probably should have majored in History for college, but what would I have done with that kind of degree other than teach? Ah, the paths not taken, since I never had any desire to be a teacher, probably my subconscious saying um, you cannot be a teacher because of who you really are which was probably smart. Besides, I wouldn’t have ever been able to pick a period to specialize in; I would have had to be like Barbara Tuchman, interested in everything and picking certain periods that intrigued me for study. How could I ever choose between the Wars of Religion and seventeenth century France, or the Hapsburgs in Spain and Austria? Although I suppose I could have specialize entirely in the sixteenth century, primarily because it was such a tumultuous transitional century. I wish I was a trained researcher, but I suppose I could still learn how to do research properly despite my great age; the problem is time. Fall Saturdays are given over to college football (and I am not giving up one of the great joys of my life) and of course Sunday I watch the Saints. But if I am going to write historical fiction set in New Orleans or Louisiana, why wouldn’t I avail myself of all of the magnificent research facilities here in the city? UNO, Tulane, Loyola and I’m sure Xavier all have archives in their libraries documenting the past here; there’s the Historic New Orleans Collection and the Williams Research Center and really, so so very much. I also need to explore the bayou parishes and the river parishes, and make my way further north to explore Acadiana…and if I ever want to write a book based on the Jeff Davis Eight, I would need to go visit that parish and look around, get a grasp for how it feels and looks there.

So much to do, so little time…and one of the great problems about Louisiana and New Orleans history is trying to decipher what is fact and what is fiction; as so many “historians” and “writers” (looking at you, Robert Tallant and Harnett Kane) often wrote legends and lore as historical fact. I’m not sure how much of Gumbo Ya-Ya is actually true or not, but for writing fiction…perhaps it doesn’t matter as much how right it is? I have this idea for a story, predicated on something I recently discovered again–I have a tendency to forget things–but there was a community just outside of New Orleans called St. Malo, which was settled by Filipinos who’d escaped bondage on Spanish sailing ships. Filipinos in Louisiana in the eighteenth century? But it’s true; and the community was mostly houses and buildings built over the water; the 1915 hurricane destroyed it completely and it was never resettled, with those who survived moving into the city proper. I have an idea for a story called “Prayers to St. Malo” that would be built around that, but the story is still taking shape. There is always more to learn about regional history here…and since I am doing such a deep dive into Alabama history, why not continue diving in regional here?

Louisiana is unique and special and different–which is why I think I felt at home here that fateful thirty-third birthday when I came to New Orleans to celebrate it. New Orleans was the first place I ever felt like I belonged, and I’ve never regretted moving here. I just wish I’d started diving into the local history sooner.