Category: research

You’ll Think of Me

Work-at-home Friday, and not a single meeting on my agenda for the day. Huzzah! I really hate meetings; I always have, primarily because so many of them fall into the “this could have been an email” category.

Yesterday was a very good day. Yes, I was alone in the clinic yesterday without a nurse, but we weren’t terribly busy and I was able to get a lot of my Admin duties–the ones that have to be done in the office–finished. I am almost completely caught up on everything, and I have been doing a very good job of keeping up with everything rather than the ever-popular meh, I can do it tomorrow thinking I so often fall into. But I’ve not been tired this week, which probably had to do with the time change and sleeping an hour later (technically) than I was. Once I am used to it, I’ll probably go back to being sleepy and tired all the time again. Something to look forward to?

And in other delightful news, a jury of his peers found Sean Dunn not guilty of a misdemeanor for throwing a Subway sandwich at an ICE agent, or “assault with a deadly sandwich.” This entire case–and that this went to fucking trial–is yet another indicator of the Keystone Cops-like approach to governance in this current “administration” and its authoritarian Fascistic policies. My personal favorite was the “victim” testifying about his PTSD from the sandwich exploding…despite the fact the sandwich can clearly be seen afterward, on the ground, still in its wrapper. I guess Mr. Alpha Male Ice Agent will be forever traumatized by the smell of onions and mustard. Grow a pair, you little bitch–balls or ovaries, I don’t care which. And seriously, everyone–yes, their grasp on power means their idiocy and fascism is scary, but this is yet another example of what whiny cry-babies the right are. Fuck them and forever, seriously. Their posturing has no basis or courage behind it.

As I said, when I got home from work last night, I wasn’t tired or fatigued; my hips didn’t even ache. I didn’t do a whole lot of anything around here, either; I caught up on watching the news and did some organizing of computer files, and I did write for a little while. It was, all in all, a very nice and relaxing evening at home. Before I start my work duties this morning, I am going to make a to-do list and put the dishes away and finish the laundry. I am thinking today is going to be my “don’t leave the house at all” day for the weekend–tomorrow I’ll make a short grocery run and get the mail–and hopefully this day, and the weekend, will be productive as well as relaxing. This morning, Sparky let me sleep in a bit before I finally got up, which was very appreciated. I feel good and rested this morning, and it looks to be a lovely day. This weekend we’re going to have extremely cold temperatures over night–potential freeze, too–so it’s a good “stay in my chair under a blanket” weather. I want to finish reading The Hunting Wives this weekend, and get started on my next book. I am going to go back to the pre-Halloween Horror Month methodology for reading something new to me, rereading something else, and reading a juvenile/young adult novel all at the same time. Maybe I can swap one of those out for nonfiction? I don’t know, we’ll have to see how The Hunting Wives goes this weekend. I’d also like to finish another newsletter essay, whether it’s the one about Boots or the one about going to my dad’s high school homecoming game when I was last in Alabama.

And of course, there’s always computer files to clean up and hard copy filing to do, too. And the chores; but I tried to keep up with them as much as I could this past week, so the downstairs isn’t too terrible.

I also can’t keep horror out of my mind, probably because I immersed myself so thoroughly in the genre for all of October. But watching those podcasts on Youtube about Appalachian/Southern lore and legend has been incredibly inspirational for my own horror writing. I’d also like to get some good foundational work done on Chlorine this weekend, too. I’m also still glowing from the election results from Tuesday; it’s nice to experience the audacity of hope again.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back on the morrow!

We really have the most gorgeous sky here.

Lookin’ for Love

…in all the wrong places1…

Thursday and my last day in the office for this week. How exciting! I have no idea what the weekend holds for me; I know I will watch the LSU game for a while, but if it goes the way I’m expecting it to I won’t need to watch after half-time. I’m not sure what other games are this weekend, but I’ll have the television on for sure playing games all day while I do other things, like pick up and clean and read and write and all the other fun things I get to do every weekend. I was a bit tired yesterday when I got off from work yesterday (I started to say night, but is it night at five? The sun was still up…sort of), but came straight home. I did some chores (laundry, the dishes) and picked up some around the kitchen. I also caught up on the news (I am really enjoying the MAGA meltdown2, because I am far pettier than they could ever hope to be), and then did a little writing–not much, just a smidgen. But it still counts!

Paul won’t be home tonight until I’ve probably fallen asleep; he’s going to some gala event fundraiser. I probably should go and be Mrs. Festival, but I’ll be so tired I’d fall asleep in a chair somewhere. I feel like I slept well–my mind is alert and other than some ache in my hips, everything else feels fine, which is definitely odd for a Thursday. I’m alone and without a nurse in the clinic again today, but I also don’t think we’re going to be very busy, either. I feel much better overall since my injection on Monday, which is very cool. Maybe I’ll actually be able to get some writing done tonight, since I have the house to myself. Stranger things have happened. Or I’ll just watch some more videos about Appalachian legend and lore. I am really enjoying these, as well as the “Dixie After Dark” podcast, which is really interesting and fun to listen to…and inspirational.

I finally got my email inbox cleared out yesterday, and I definitely like having an empty inbox. I usually fall behind on it, slowly but surely, and a trip will always make me fall behind. Now that my anxiety is (mostly) under control these days, having a full inbox no longer makes me tense and nervous. Weird, I know, but a leftover from serving on boards and getting buried in blizzards of emails. I had to stay current on my email then in order to not get so far behind I could never catch up…but that is certainly no longer the case, so it’s never that much work to empty it, to be honest, and I love that for me.

This week’s episode of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City wasn’t as good as last week’s–a very high bar to clear–but I was highly entertained for the entire episode and never got bored–you never get bored with this cast. I also have to applaud production, because it’s very clear they know what people are watching for and they camp the show up considerably, making it even more fun than just the usual women-screaming-at-each-other-over-petty -shit. I did laugh multiple times, and it took me out of the our present doom-scape (like the election results did; I think my favorite outcome of all was the ouster of the Moms for Liberty3 skanks from school boards everywhere, including red states, cities, and counties. Fuck off, Libs of Tiktok, now and forever. Odd that your concern for children doesn’t extend to voting for and supporting pedophiles. It’s like you don’t really care about children as anything other than political pawns, which is both reprehensible and evil.

Turns out most Americans think you’re scum, too.

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

  1. Yes, I remember when Urban Cowboy came out and country went more mainstream. I remember a bar in Emporia even put in a mechanical bull–and no, I never did it myself. ↩︎
  2. Also was able to use the Islamophobic posts to block and delete people from my feed. I stand for no bigotry and never want to see it on my feed. The Debra Messing meltdown was something else entirely, but I was never a fan of hers. Maybe someday I’ll critique Will and Grace. ↩︎
  3. Any group that puts “liberty” in their name actually is fascist and should be side-eyed and blocked from any electoral office. ↩︎

Wagon Wheel

Looks like Wednesday Pay-the-Bills Day has rolled around again, woo-hoo! Apparently another cold front is swooping down on us from the frozen north; temperatures dipping down into the forties (!!!!) this weekend. The meteorologists are also saying we’re done with temperatures in the 80s until spring–but I am not holding my breath on that one. New Orleans weather always has a habit of making forecasters look foolish because, well, it’s New Orleans weather. It snowed earlier this year, for example.1 But I am actually enjoying this respite from the heat and humidity, and I am sleeping like a stone every night since the weather changed, which is delightful. Even the time change wasn’t as disruptive as it usually is–although last night I fell asleep in my chair around eight-ish, which used to be nine-ish. But I don’t mind. I didn’t get much done when I got home from work yesterday, because I was feeling tired, and Sparky was feeling needy. I did run some errands on the way home, getting the mail and picking up prescriptions (two more will be ready for pick-up today, I think), but once I was home, I didn’t really do a lot of anything. I was on edge a bit about yesterday’s elections, but checked the news before going to bed and saw that the Reich Wing was getting trounced everywhere–so much for MAGA’s popularity–and was even more delighted to see this morning that those results held. Three seats in Mississippi’s state house flipped Democratic, too–in Mississippi. MISSISSIPPI. Think about that for a moment…and what it implies about the midterms. I’m feeling hopeful, at least for this morning at any rate.

Darth Cheney died, and there was a massive blue wave. Who could ask for anything more? If voters are this angry with MAGA now, imagine how the midterms could go. What a lovely way for November to start, am I right?

Today is going to be a busy one at work. Our nurse is out, and it’s just me in the clinic today. Undoubtedly I will be exhausted when I get home tonight, but I also decided last night to go back and finish reading The Hunting Wives (which was interrupted by Halloween Horror Month), since I was only a chapter into the Scott Carson. I will be rejiggering my reading schedule and what is up next over the next few days. I do need to get caught up a bit on my Donna Andrews, so I can listen to one of her Christmas mysteries on the way up to Kentucky later this month for Thanksgiving. I am not dreading that drive as much as I usually do, and I suppose this is the first major test of the recovery, isn’t it? Twelve hours in a car? But the key is to take my time and not get stressed about anything, and I may even try going a different way–through Nashville and up the Cumberland Parkway. Anything to avoid Chatta-fucking-nooga. I’ll drive home the old way, most likely, but it’s not a bad thing to shake things up a little bit, is it?

I did watch some more Appalachian lore videos last night, which are always fun and inspiring. I started thinking about the next Scotty last night–trying to land on a title and a time of the year, leaning towards Halloween Party Hijinks–which is also kind of fun. I have no idea what the plot of that would be, but I always have to have the title and the time of the year first. Does it make any sense? Not in the least, but I am extremely different from every other writer out there; not better nor worse, just different when it comes to writing and the writing process. I want to work some more on my novella tonight, too. So far, tomorrow looks like a very easy day in the clinic, despite again not having a nurse and working the schedule entirely on my own, which will wear me out for sure.

Oh, and People named Jonathan Bailey as the first openly gay Sexiest Man Alive. Yesterday was a very good day, wasn’t it? To be fair, he definitely is one of the sexiest men alive, and it’s not something that I ever pay that much attention to–the last one I remember was the joke selection of Blake Shelton (bitch, please) and that was nearly ten years ago–but this is landmark, and also a bitch-slap to the mouth-breathing haters. I’m actually surprised President Stillson hasn’t whined about never being picked for this…

And on that note, I should pay some bills before I head into the office.

Have a lovely mid-week Wednesday, and I will be back tomorrow morning for sure, for sure.

  1. The snow days, and the novelty of snow, was fun…but not something I want to experience all the time. ↩︎

Ridin’ My Thumb to Mexico

Tuesday! We survived Monday, Constant Reader, and lived to tell the tale. Huzzah for us! I also gave myself my first Skyrizi1 injection on my own, and it was pretty easy and simple. Before anxiety medications, I would have undoubtedly worked myself up into quite the tizzy about the injection, but as I said, it was pretty easy and before I knew it all the medicine was in my system and I could toss the device into the SHARPS container in my testing room. I didn’t even bleed, or feel the needle at all. Also, the first time I did it, with the pharmaceutical company’s nurse watching and helping, I wasn’t wearing my hearing aids so couldn’t hear it running. Not a problem with the hearing aids in, though! It actually sounded rather loud, frankly, so if there was any doubt about whether they help me hear better, there’s the answer.

I also spent some time yesterday filing my claim with the Anthropic settlement. They had eighteen of my titles (!!!), which was time consuming to enter each book into the claim database, but it could have been worse; they didn’t have all of my titles, praise Jesus. I doubt I’ll ever see a cent from this, but hey, I certainly wouldn’t had I not filed a claim, right? But it was sobering to see how much they stole from me–thought they had a right to steal from me–but we are again living in the time of the Long Con, aren’t we?

Speaking of long cons, I woke up to the news that Dick Cheney has died2. We used to call Darth Cheney back in those pre-Tea Party pre-MAGA pre-Obama days, because he was a horrible, evil man whose primary concerns were getting us into endless wars so the company he used to work for, Halliburton (remember them, anyone?), could make billions in profit. The Republicans of that era used 9/11 and its aftermath to consolidate power, pass the egregiously unconstitutional PATRIOT Act (the foundation for the bullshit we’re seeing today), and the creation of Homeland Security. Remember how quickly the “fiscally conservative” Republicans spent through the surplus Clinton left behind, and pissed all over the budget and the deficit? But hey, so long as Halliburton was profiting from the wars, right? They lied to the American public to get us into Iraq, and no one was ever held accountable, which is part of the reason we’re in the mess we’re in now; we don’t hold politicians accountable for lying to the citizenry.

And don’t even get me started on the homophobia of the Bush-Cheney years. He participated in a campaign that targeted queer people and homophobia despite having a queer child of his own, if that tells you anything about who, and what, Dick Cheney was. He eventually publicly changed his mind about queer people and marriage equality, but he never acknowledged or apologized for his war crimes, or his crimes against the American people. Y’all can mourn him all you like; but his family has always been just as bad as he was–and his daughter’s anti-Trump turn didn’t make up for all the bad shit she has said and done over the years, either–and the widow is just as vile as her husband, if not more so.

I also made groceries on the way home from work last night. I wasn’t tired, which was odd; it was a slow day at the clinic and so I was able to get some other administrative work done, which was very cool. Paul was working on a grant, so I spent the evening watching videos for research on Youtube and taking notes. I worked on a novella for a little while (A Holler Full of Kudzu, for those who take note of these sorts of things), which was fun–I do like creating without any deadline pressures on me–and I love that I am sliding back into writing mode again. I do love writing.

I also finished my final Halloween Horror Month newsletter for 2025, about my recent reread of The Haunting of Hill House, and why I love the book (and its author) so much. It may be the best essay I’ve done for the newsletter so far; which probably has everything to do with how much I love the book, and writing about it. I am always so nervous to do those kinds of essays; one of the reasons I am so insecure about them, especially when exploring the art of others, is that I don’t have the kind of educational background I feel might be necessary. I’ve not read scholarship or articles or essays about literature or film or television; my insights therefore might not be so fresh or original as I think they might be; is anything really original anymore? But…my opinions are just as valid as anyone else’s, and why do I need to read the opinions of others to form my own? Confidence is always the name of the game, and working through and ignoring the lack of it in my brain can only help me grow as a person and as a writer, right?

Easier said than done.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, and I will check back in again tomorrow morning.

Um, SIR YES SIR!!!
  1. This is the medication for the ulcerative colitis I have to inject every eight weeks. ↩︎
  2. He was 84, only a few years older than the current head of his party. ↩︎

Let the Mystery Be

Ah, it’s Monday morning and it’s back to the office with me today. It’s currently 54 degrees in the Crescent City (it was supposed to dip down into the 40s for the low; maybe it happened while I was sleeping), and it’s light outside. I also get to give myself my shot this morning by myself, but I’m not terribly concerned about that–no anxiety here!–because there are instructional videos on Youtube, for a worst case scenario. I can also tell it’s about time for it, as I’ve had some very small stomach issues (nothing major or disruptive) over the course of the weekend. The Saints apparently got pummeled again yesterday, too–I imagine there aren’t many people around who remember how hapless they used to be, so this recent turn of ineptitude is probably a big shock.

At least we managed to win a Super Bowl during that run, you know?

We watched Jurassic World: Rebirth1, primarily for Jonathan Bailey and dinosaurs, and Bailey didn’t disappoint, and some of the dinosaurs were really cool…but the plot was stupid and the movie was really poorly written, clearly relying on the dinosaurs (and Jonathan Bailey) to make the viewer forget how abysmal the film actually is. When it ended, Paul said, “I am so glad we didn’t pay to see that in the theater” and I couldn’t do anything other than agree. I mean, it’s usually not a good sign when you’re rooting for the dinosaurs, right? (Except for Jonathan Bailey…hmm, sensing a theme in this paragraph) Scarlett Johansson was pretty kick-ass as the leader of the “extraction” theme–they are being sent into the dinosaur area to retrieve blood for medical research from the biggest dinosaurs (land, sea, air) which also doesn’t make sense…since the way it was explained only said they needed it from a large dinosaur, so why not just get it all from the first big one you encounter? Because, silly viewer, there would be no movie after the sea dinosaur! Contrived, contrived, contrived…and none of this shit made the least bit of sense. I know, I know–but DINOSAURS!

Yeah, sorry, I still need a plot and story that make sense and don’t have holes big enough to drive an aircraft carrier through in my monster movies. And really, that’s all these movies are–monster movies with cash grab sequels. I think I’ve only seen two before this one: the original and one of the sequels with Chris Pratt, who I didn’t know yet was a garbage piece of shit person. He is the worst Chris. I doubt I’ll watch another of these movies, and I certainly would never pay to watch one, for sure.

Yesterday was a nice, relaxing day. It was a good weekend overall, really. We got Paul’s new phone set up, we drove out to the mall so he could get some new clothes for a gala event he has to go to this week, and then we went all the way to Kenner to get him some new over-the-ear headphones, because the best Christmas gift ever (the original ones I got him almost nine years ago) wouldn’t sync with the new phone (much like how my hearing aids don’t with my new phone), and we got him some nice new ones, that synced up immediately. We watched the movie at night and I mostly just did chores and some research yesterday on Youtube–primarily watching videos about Southern/Appalachian lores and legends to research for potential stories of my own (one synced up nicely for an unfinished young adult novel I want to get done in 2026), which is quite marvelous, really. I still haven’t made the to-do list that’s absolutely necessary for me to stay on track this week, which I need to do today. The good news is I feel alert, rested and mentally alert, which is always a good thing.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have yourself a merry little Monday, Constant Reader–remember, Christmas looms on the horizon–and I’ll be back tomorrow morning, I promise.

  1. I actually read the Michael Crichton original novel before it was filmed. ↩︎

Season of the Witch

Happy All Saints Day! And welcome to November, I suppose. This year is slipping away like sands through the hour glass (hat tip: Days of Our Lives), but the terrorist attack of New Year’s seems like it was a million years ago, too. When I think about where we are now as opposed to where we were ten months ago, though…it seems like a decade has passed since my New Year’s blog, doesn’t it? I slept deeply and well last night, and Sparky let me sleep later (although he got his razor blades trimmed yesterday, so him smacking me in the face in the morning doesn’t have the same impact) than I usually do, so that was nice too. We have to run some errands today we didn’t get to yesterday, but that’s fine. LSU isn’t playing today so I don’t have a vested interest in watching games today, so I don’t really care to be home for them all day, either. I probably won’t get any writing or much reading done, but…I also am not going to worry about it. Yes, time is slipping away, but I also need to allow myself to get rest and be lazy without beating myself up about it all the damned time, too. Progress?

Perhaps. We shall see.

I also have to pay some bills this morning before we do anything, and probably get some of the chores done, too. I made good progress on chores yesterday; the bed linens all got laundered, the dishes are done and put away, the counters are cleaned and cleared, and all I really need to do is vacuum the rugs and mop the floors, and potentially prune more of the books down. I need to be more ruthless, too.

The backlash to governor Janky Jeff’s massive interference with LSU apparently taught the moron some sort of lesson, because he backed the fuck down after Scott Woodward (best of luck to you, sir, you worked wonders at LSU and I am sorry Janky Jeff decided to show his ass) was fired. To paraphrase Mean Girls, “he didn’t even go there.” He also got some pushback when he tried to force Loyola (a Jesuit Catholic private university in New Orleans) to charter a chapter of Turning Point USA after the student senate flatly rejected their application, mainly because they don’t share the same values as the Society of Jesus. Bitch slap! I was glad to see a Catholic university stand their ground against political interference from TEMU Huey Long. Don’t stand with the evangelicals, Catholics–they will come for you eventually as idolators and papists and pagans. They don’t think you’re real Christians in the first place, so less than what they see as “white.” Janky Jeff is not popular in Louisiana; only 19% of registered voters even voted in that gubernatorial election because we had no options. All the candidates were different degrees of MAGA, anyway. I don’t even remember who I voted for, but I have never cast a ballot for Jeff Landry and I never will.

I can only hope to be seated in the jury for his inevitable trial for corruption and malfeasance. No, they wouldn’t seat me, because no one could ever convince me he isn’t guilty.

Then again, Jindal was never charged with anything. And he definitely should have been; his wife was just as corrupt as Casey DeSantis, and the corrupt always corrupt. (Note to everyone: their women are just as bad as, if not worse, than their husbands. See: Usha Vance, Melania Trump, Lara Trump…the list is lengthy.)

Sigh.

My mind is still deeply entrenched in horror, by the way, which is something I don’t remember Halloween Horror Month doing to me before; maybe because I was always trying to finish a book before the end of the year? This entire decade has been mentally draining and fatiguing, frankly, and I’ve had a lot of brain fog and increasing loss of memory. I do wonder occasionally about how different my career would be had I gone into horror rather than crime; rather than just being a fan. I did want to write horror when I was in my twenties, and even tried. I laugh now when I remember thinking my personalized rejections with suggestions and tips and encouragement to keep writing and submitting to them, from horror magazine editors, was just them being nice. Editors are never nice like that, ever, as I have since learned. I guess I was so down on myself and had such a lack of self-esteem (as well as knowledge; there was no one to tell me differently) that I focused on the rejection rather than accepting the encouragement. Each rejection was further confirmation that I was a loser, and I was in such a spiral of misery in the 1980s there wasn’t any way I could have seriously pursued being a writer. I don’t have regrets–I never do–but sometimes I do wonder. I played the cards I was dealt and everything eventually turned out, didn’t it? But I am going to try to work on some things tomorrow, since I don’t have to leave the house at all and Paul is, I think, going to his office.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back here in the morning.

Cry Little Sister

Thou shalt not fall…1

Tuesday morning in the Lost Apartment and I slept through the night–at least I don’t remember waking up or being in that horrible half-sleep thing I used to deal with all the time (and do NOT miss that shit in the least) and this morning I feel more physically rested than I did yesterday. The weather is continuing to get cooler, which is lovely. I ran some errands on my way home from work tonight, and will probably stop and make a little groceries on the way home this evening as well. After a nice day at work yesterday, I came home to a very needy and demanding kitty who demanded lap time from me; Paul and I also started watching the new season of The Diplomat, which is excellent (I still can’t entirely wrap my mind around the fact that it’s FELICITY in the lead; do people remember that show at all?), and you can never go wrong adding Alison Janney to the cast of anything.

I didn’t get anything much done outside of job duties and errands yesterday; probably a delayed hangover from the emotional release of being done with the book at last. I did pick up some books on the way home: the new Andy Mills mystery by Lev Rosen, Mirage City; American Scary: A History of Horror from Salem to Stephen King and Beyond by Jeremy Dauber; The Pink Marine by Greg Cope White (the basis for Boots); and Breathe In Bleed Out by Brian McAuley, all of which look terrific. I mean, I don’t need more books–it’s quite literally the last thing I need–but sometimes I just can’t help myself.

I do want to do some writing this week; I may extend the week through this weekend (I mean, I am extending Halloween Horror Month, and why should I be ruled by the tyranny of the calendar if I don’t have deadlines?) because I am feeling a bit of the post-book malaise, which always happens but I didn’t think was going to happen this time…I always feel a bit drained and like I need to recharge a bit. But you never know; I may be able to get some words down today–never say never, after all, and stranger things have happened.

I have to say that I’ve been a little shocked and surprised by everything that’s come out since Brian Kelly was fired on Sunday. I haven’t seen anything positive posted by any of his former players (but a lot of negative stuff, including from past stars), but I did see the Lacy family posted something positive about how he was with them after Kyren’s death earlier this year (which I am still angry about, but the news cycle has moved on from his being framed by a fucking state trooper), which was nice. I’m not sure how the rest of the season is going to go; probably safe to assume we’re going to lose to both Alabama and Oklahoma with potential wins against Western Kentucky and Arkansas (maybe)–but I would love to know what went on during half-time of the A&M game, given the utter and complete collapse after we took the field again.

Clearly, he wasn’t much of a motivational speaker.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back on the morrow.

Ramesses, Ramesses, Ramesses…
  1. I really should write about The Lost Boys sometime. ↩︎

Goo Goo Muck

Pay-the-Bills Wednesday! Another good night’s sleep, another morning of not wanting to get out of the warm and oh-so-comfy bed. I was tired yesterday when I got home from work, and thus didn’t get much of anything done other than cuddling with Sparky and catching up on the news, which is always exhausting and tiring. I did also get to go to bed early last night, too–maybe I should start going to bed at nine instead of between nine-thirty and ten; I certainly fall asleep in my chair well before that.

There’s a new storm in the gulf (Caribbean Sea, actually) formed and no one seems to know where it was going to go–which is always a lovely thing for late October. Her name this time is Michelle, and again it’s very weird to have a hurricane formed and sitting down there off Venezuela when I had my editorial call about Hurricane Season Hustle. My editor loved the book, which is always lovely, and there’s very little for me to do as far as revisions and edits, which is super-nice. The experience of writing this book wasn’t a pleasant one, but it really didn’t have anything to do with the actual writing of the book but everything that went on while I was writing the book. This has colored how I feel about the book, honestly, which is yet another example of why an editor is necessary. But I am very happy it is almost done and out of my hands, and it’s been a hot minute since I had a novel come out….and this is a February 2026 release date. Huzzah!

And now I need to start getting ready to push my way through the next one I want to write, which, at long last, is Chlorine, and I am very excited at finally being able to sink my teeth into this one. I am thinking about doing another Scotty next year, and maybe even a new Chanse (long shot) for the year that series, now ended, turns 25. Twenty-five. The Scotty series turns 25 in 2028…yikes, you know? Of course I don’t want to think about how old I will be on those momentous occasions…oh, that’s a lie. I don’t care that I’m old and getting older every day. I only think of it in the terms of wow that was a long time ago, wasn’t it?

I’ve also been learning that I need to be more careful with my words and shouldn’t use some as interchangeably as I always, flippantly, have done. For one example, I’m used to using tired as a catch-all for everything; but there are differences between the feelings that tired doesn’t really adequately convey what I am feeling. This morning, I feel a bit sleepy physically; I’m not tired or fatigued, but like part of my body still hasn’t completely woken up yet. My mind is firing on every cylinder. So, I am trying to use fatigue because it’s more accurate than saying tired; brain fog for that horrible mental feeling; and sleepy for “want to go to, or back to, bed.” You’d think a writer would always be careful with their words, but me? Not so much. I am trying to be better about that, though.

I am loving this low 80’s daytime/mid-60’s at night weather, and it’s going to dip even more next week–going into the low 70’s and mid-50s at night. Hurray for a lower power bill! And next Friday is Halloween! How has that happened already? Heavy sigh. It’s been a rough year, so I probably should be happier that it went by so fast.

And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I will see you in the morning on “last day in the office Thursday for the week.”

I love the juxtaposition between the ancient temple and the modern architecture.

Unholy

Monday and back to the office with me this morning. Huzzah, I think. I felt good yesterday, and read a lot further into Hokuloa Road, which I am also really enjoying (more on that later). It was, overall, a nice and relaxed day here in the Lost Apartment. Sparky was good cuddle-boy all day, too, for the most part. He still does his best to get me up at six every morning, but much more intensely when he hears the alarm go off. He knows that means I have to get up, and so he is more persistent on those mornings (like this morning). But I feel rested and good, which is always a better way of starting the week rather than feeling tired, which is how last week developed, and that tired feeling lasted through the week and most of the weekend.

I did some chores yesterday and made progress on getting everything organized and filed away, around reading the book. I also made some progress on other things, too, which was very cool. It was nice having a productive weekend for a change, other than one where I am trying to get rested and nothing much gets done. The LSU loss Saturday morning also kind of killed my interest in watching games on Saturday, which helped me get things done. They play at night this Saturday, hosting undefeated Texas A&M, who have never won in Baton Rouge since joining the SEC–they beat Alabama before they beat LSU, in fact–but they are pretty good this year and LSU is not, so…probably be a long night this Saturday.

I also need to revise and update my to-do list this morning at some point. I’m not sure how busy we will be in the clinic today, but when I checked Thursday it wasn’t bad–that obviously could have changed between then and now. We shall see.

It was both weird and nice to spend so much time reading yesterday. I always forget how much I love reading (I have noted, before, many times, how weird it is that I have to force myself to do things that I love), until I really get caught up in a book. I was hoping it would rain yesterday, but alas–it was not to be. That would have been lovely–raining outside, snuggled under a blanket in my easy chair with Sparky and a cup of coffee, all snug while I read. It just doesn’t get better than that, you know? I am planning on reading some more tonight when I get home from the office before doing some chores–Sparky loves to sleep in my lap once I get home for the day–and if I can do that every night, I can make some progress on this out-of-control TBR pile.

As I said, I am enjoying Hokuloa Road. It’s a slow burn, which I like, slowly picking up speed as you go. It’s set on a made-up island in the Hawaiian Island chain (best I can tell; apologies if I am incorrect and the unnamed island actually does exist), which is fun. I love Hawaii, even if I haven’t been back there in thirty years. It was my parents’ absolute favorite place to go in the world; so every year I worked at the airline we’d go. I fell in love with Hawaii myself more every time we went, and the last time we went I broke away and did gay things; went to the gay bars, went to the gay beach every day, and even got laid a couple of times while I was there. It was a lot of fun, and I had always wanted to write about Hawaii–but only did once, in an erotic short story and like Elizabeth Hand, I never named the setting as a Hawaiian beach. (The story was called “The Sea Where It’s Shallow”–one of my all-time favorite titles–and I don’t remember where it was published originally, but I do know it’s in my collection Promises in Every Star.) I worry about exoticizing Hawaii and it’s native people, as a haole. Maybe I should revisit it? I do know that some novels I’ve read set in Hawaii were very much that…

I also started writing a short story this weekend, with the working title “Even Katydids Dream,” and yes, that’s a very obvious Shirley Jackson reference. It was inspired by that call for submissions for one (!) lucky writer to get into that Stephen King The Shining appreciation anthology–and the furor that followed the announcement. I really don’t like when authors call out anthology editors for opportunities they don’t think are “fair.” Fairness has nothing to do with it, for the record, and it’s their anthology; they can make the rules whatever they want them to be. I was criticized by people for the last open call I did for an anthology because they didn’t like my rules–and I replied to every whining email “don’t submit.” (I also tracked them, so I could be certain not to accept a story from someone who established from the very fucking beginning they would be difficult to work with and entitled–and I almost always back the writers, so for me to be critical of writers…yeah.) Nothing is fair in publishing, so get used to it unless you want to be angry all the time.

I’d rather channel that energy into writing, frankly.

The more I thought about the pompous and pretentious complaints I saw over the course of a few days last week, the more I started thinking about writing something in that universe. But what? And then the idea came to me, followed by the title, so I started writing it. I probably won’t submit it to the call–one of the submission rules (the timing) is something I’m not sure I would be able to handle. They are only considering the first five hundred stories, so when the window opens you have to have everything ready to go so you can hit send when the minute turns–and I know myself too well to think I’ll remember to get up early on that day. But I like the story, and I can always strip all that Overlook Hotel stuff out of it and use it somewhere else if I want to. I may not ever finish it. Who knows?

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

Wish List

Somehow I’ve made it to Wednesday this week, so praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, thank you very much. I was very tired yesterday–muscle fatigue more than anything else, thank God no brain fog–but there have been worse days than yesterday. I got almost completely caught up on all the work I was behind on, and can head into the office today knowing that I will be caught up and current on everything by the end of the day, which is marvelous. Yay me! I also updated all bills and made a to-do list yesterday, which should work for the rest of the week. I also get to start reading a new horror novel when I get home from work tonight–either Scott Carson or Elizabeth Hand, which should be awesome.

We finished Boots last night, which I enjoyed very much. I have seen some people complaining about the lack of romance on the show–it’s boot fucking camp, hello?–which seems kind of a ludicrous complaint, really. Were they expecting soft-core gay porn? Wasn’t all the eye candy enough? Honestly. I enjoyed the writing, the acting, and the story itself. I may go into more deeply at some point, after I’ve digested it a while and thought about it some more. I also enjoyed Miles Heizer in this, and given how much he annoyed me in Thirteen Reasons Why, and that is saying something. But I will say this–I think Max Parker is the breakout star from this show. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous man, and his performance as a decorated (and closeted) drill instructor during those horrible times when homosexuality was a crime in the armed forces, and yeah. There was a part of me that hoped the characters of Miles and Max would end up together–but I wasn’t terribly disappointed (SPOILER) that they didn’t. It was the story of Miles getting through boot camp with his platoon brothers, the relationships they built with each other, and literally maturing and growing up; and while the notion of ideal Marine masculinity can be troubling…they are being trained to work as a unit and for war.

Something to ponder there. Was modern-day toxic masculinity developed during war-time service in the Pacific and Europe, only to have the returning soldiers seep into the popular culture? Yeah, I’ll probably write longer-form about Boots, because it will easily play into my essay series about masculinity that I am planning to write.

Also, very nice to see openly gay actors not only getting work but getting to play gay characters in something as well done as this.1 It also reminded me that my dad thought it might be a good idea for me to go into the military for two years before going to college–and I wanted absolutely nothing to do with that idea. I don’t regret that decision, but you always have to wonder how different everything would be had I went along with that idea.

Must be my old age that has me going down these alternate history paths.

I did make a to-do list yesterday and I plan on getting started on that today. I am going to fetch the mail on my way home from work tonight, and then probably again on Friday afternoon. Since the LSU game is so early on Saturday, I’ll try to get all errands done either on Friday or Sunday morning. I also started writing a longer-form essay on Frendo Lives, too; what’s the point of Halloween Horror Month if I don’t write about the horror media I am consuming this month? I also seriously want to write about the whole concept of the slasher story, which is what Adam Cesare’s “Frendo” trilogy basically are. I have to say I’ve always wanted to write a slasher novel.

Still not completely caught up on everything that’s been going on in the world, and not really sure that I actually want to, either. Ah, well.

And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning, methinks.

The adorable Freddie Stroma, who plays Vigilante in Peacemaker
  1. Apparently it filmed here in New Orleans, too. ↩︎