Category: revising

This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

It’s Sunday, which means it’s June, so HAPPY PRIDE MONTH, everyone! Woo-hoo! (Cue the bigots and homophobes: why do they get a whole month when the military doesn’t? Sorry you don’t care enough about the actual military, self-styled “patriots,” to know when Military Appreciation Month is–read a fucking book sometime, okay?)

And by the way, assholes, if y’all didn’t come at us with shame all the fucking time, we wouldn’t need Pride in the first place–and remember, the first one was a riot.

My alarm Sparky let me sleep until just after six this morning, which is actually fine. My new sleep patterns had me awake before he started purring and poking at me; I was actually wondering where he was when I woke up, but I wait until he comes to get me up. Yesterday was a lovely, relaxing day for the most part. I finished reading all three of my books (!), which was delightful (enjoyed them all, too) but created a dilemma for me: I wanted to write newsletters about each book, but does anyone really want to get three newsletters from me in one day, especially when it’s Pride Month and I had intended to spend the month writing about being gay in America, and my sordid gay past? That would be four newsletters in one day, were I to do that, so I am on the horns of a dilemma1 this morning. I think I’ll write them all up and save the extras as drafts for later. I do highly recommend Murder Takes a Vacation by Laura Lippman, and I really enjoyed revisiting Moonraker.

And I plan on writing about all the kids’ series I enjoyed as a kid, so the Vicki Barr entry can be saved for later.

I did some chores yesterday, and was actually writing my newsletter about the new Lippman when our power went out yesterday afternoon. Only for an hour, unlike those poor people who went without for over twenty-four hours the weekend before, and I don’t know what caused it–it was a beautiful sunny yet cool day yesterday here in New Orleans–but I used that time to finish the Vicki Barr and barbecue dinner. Ironically, when I brought the hamburgers in when they were finished, the power came back. I watched some of the French Open, we watched this week’s Murderbot, the season finale of Hacks, and then binged some more of The Better Sister, which is superb. We’ll most likely finish that tonight.

I had already decided to bump queer writers and books up the TBR pile for Pride Month2, so my next new-to-me read is going to be Summerhouse, which Kristopher Zgorski recommended on his blog. My next reread will be The Dark on the Other Side by Barbara Michaels, and my next kid’s mystery reread will by The Mystery of the Haunted Mine, which has remained one of my favorite books from when I was a kid, and I got my copy from the Scholastic Book Fair; amazing that I still have it despite all the moves since then, right?

I feel very rested and relaxed this morning. I am still getting stronger (and more mentally back together) every day, which is terrific; My legs still tire easily, but that just means I need to exercise and walk more. I did doze off in my easy chair for about an hour yesterday–getting up early every day does that to me sometimes–but I also got some chores done, and have more to do today if I don’t get lazy. I have to run make some groceries later this morning–better to do it today than on the way home from work tomorrow, right? It’s so much easier to take I-10 home from work, even if the ramp to 90 and the west bank backs up; it’s still easier than navigating through Tremé and the CBD.

I also watched LSU’s baseball game last night against Dallas Baptist before going to bed, certain they would win, and they did; they are in the regional championship today. GEAUX TIGERS!

I’m still feeling good about things overall, too, which is definitely a good thing. I’ve got my to-do list (some things are ready to be scratched off) to work through, as well as these chores to finish up, so I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a great Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning–keep an eye out for the newsletter, too!

The courtyard of Madame John’s Legacy in the French Quarter
  1. Which also begs the question of what should I make my newsletter thematically in the first place? Do I even need a theme? This is what happens when I stop to think about things, you know, which is why I try not to ever stop to think about things. ↩︎
  2. Making me just as bad as cishet readers, right? “I only read queer books during Pride.” Ah, well, something else for me to deconstruct, right? ↩︎

Delicate

Saturday in the Lost Apartment and all is well. I slept incredibly well last night, and feel energized and rested this morning. I am up at six again this morning, thanks to my alarm cat, but I don’t mind in the least. I have some chores I left for this morning to do; and I want to spend the day reading, doing chores, and relaxing…and maybe, just maybe, writing some more. #Madness, right?

Yesterday I was up before six–so much for sleeping in, but my body clock was clearly reset during my illness and I am now a morning person for the first time in my life–so I did some chores and even some writing (!!!) before it was time for me to start Remote work for the day. When I finished with work, I ran some errands–had to have bloodwork done again, made groceries, picked up the mail and a prescription–and relaxed a bit before going to dinner with a very dear friend. I didn’t get many chores done around the house other than laundry and a load of dishes; but I even wrote more on that short story that’s proving to be harder to write than I thought it would be. There are several short story calls I have bookmarked that I would like to try to write something for. Yes, I am feeling a bit more ambitious, and am also thinking a lot more clearly. There’s still fog in my brain sometimes, and there are times when my attention span is all over the place, but I also feel like when I am clear-headed, I am thinking a lot more practically, confidently, ambitiously, and pragmatically, which is the best mental space to be in to reflect on yourself, where you are in your life, and what you want this inevitable third act of your life to be like. I am making plans again…and while life has a way of throwing a monkey wrench into plans at the worst possible time with the plans having to be completely discarded entirely sometimes and replanned all over again, but it helps me feel like I have some control over my life and my career and everything that goes along with that.

And I do like feeling like I have some control over my life, you know?

I need to get back to writing, but I am being patient and letting my brain and my body dictate what I do every day. There are days when my job takes all my energy and all my brainpower. So be it, you need to rest when you get home–if you’re not too tired to focus you can read, and of course, there’s always something to watch on television. (I am itching to finish bingeing The Better Sister, for example.)

I had dinner with a dear friend of several decades standing last night at a delightful restaurant on Magazine Street that we go to whenever we dine together, Lilette. I even had a solitary cocktail, the Lilette Rouge, which was delicious, and I do recommend the Kobe burger with cheese; it’s mouth-watering good. The conversation was wonderful, and I kept thinking to myself all evening about how lucky I am. I do have the most amazing friends–smart and talented and witty and fun to be around. I am tired of drama and want no part of that anymore–sort yourself out, thanks, but I won’t be a part of that process. Even the three friends that I lost recently; my God, they were Dorothy Allison and Felice Picano and Victoria A. Brownworth–queer writing icons. It’s so very easy to get down about my life, especially when I’m not feeling well (I was so morose when I was so sick and in the hospital; it was why I wasn’t really responding to anyone or posting–so much maudlin self-pity about how everything sucked!!!), but the truth is I’ve had quite a marvelous second act, which made the horrors of the first act so worth experiencing and living through. Every dream I had as that lonely terrified gay kid with no friends that was bullied and shamed daily, has come true for me. No one can ever take away the writing I’ve published, the awards I was short-listed for, or anything I’ve ever accomplished in my publishing career. I got my first by-line in 1996, in Minneapolis, and from there I built a haphazard, all over the map, hard to define career that has given me endless amounts of satisfaction, pride, and joy for the last almost thirty years (yes, in January of next year I will mark my thirtieth year as a published writer! It’s been an interesting journey).

And yet my first college creative writing professor told me I would never publish anything, ever.

But yes, dinner was lovely. I should make plans and do things with people more often–when I’ve gotten my strength back. I’ve increasingly isolated myself since the pandemic; I think I went into hermit mode during the shutdown and never really emerged from it. I also had dehydration sickness that first summer of COVID, before vaccinations; and somehow managed to stave off COVID itself until the summer of 2022, and I’m still not sure I ever completely recovered from that before the next thing, which was my arm injury, the ten month wait for the surgery. And then Mom died, and I had the oral surgeries before the arm surgery, and then I was in rehab/PT for the arm, trying to recover from that trauma, and I think I just burnt out from everything, because I was also still writing on top of all of that. In a way, this sickness and physical/mental collapse was necessary, for me to get some rest and recuperate and stop focusing on being miserable all the time because I’m not and have no reason to be, and remember to keep seeing things as challenges to best rather than something else I need to do.

See what having dinner with a beloved friend who is just a radiant flame of positive energy can do for me? It’s wonderful to have friends who make you feel like you can do anything, and I actually have a lot of those in my life.

Like I said, I need to keep reminding myself to focus on how fucking lucky I am and what a truly lovely life I lead. I get to write, you know? I love writing. I love creating and making new characters and inventing places and coming up with the inevitable story from who those characters actually are and behave is my favorite thing to do, and I also love to challenge myself when I am writing. This little story I am working on–for which there is no market that I am aware of–is really about faith, and how far someone who considers herself devout will step outside of that when presented with a horrible situation; but I have to make sure that, morally challenged as she may be, why she makes the choices she does. It’s been slow going so far, but if I pull it off, “The Witch Bottle” will be a good story. See? This is what I love. I commented the other day that I seem to be having better luck writing the blog and the newsletter rather than fiction lately, but I’m having some very good ideas, and I do think my next revision of Hurricane Season Hustle will turn it into quite a fine piece of work.

I really can’t wait to get back to writing fiction again.

Damn. I am so fucking lucky.

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

A marvelous panel I was on (see? Lucky!) at Minneapolis Bouchercon the morning after the airline lost my suitcase. Attica Locke, Karen Dionne, me in the back, Edwin Hill, David Heska Wanbli Weiden and Nancy Johnson. My imposter syndrome was off the charts that day!

Look What You Made Me Do

And we made it to Thursday, our last day in the office for the week and we survived! Huzzah!

We had a marvelous rain last night, a steady downpour that no doubt flooded neighborhoods and streets and ruined any number of cars. There was thunder, too, and it made an already tired Gregalicious even sleepier, so much so that rather than doing chores before bed, I just went to bed and slept. I slept great as long as the storm lasted, but once it was over I was restless and tossing and turning. Sigh. We’re also busy in clinic today, so I sense another evening of exhaustion. I made groceries on the way home yesterday, and was thus very tired when I got home. I made a pizza for dinner, and then Paul and I watched Sirens (didn’t care for it so stopped watching) and then moved on to the final season of Big Mouth, which is so wrong but so damned fucking funny; it’s about kids going through puberty and is hilarious. It’s animated, so that removes the ick factor it would have if it were live action. I also didn’t do chores last night, so tonight I’ll have to push through the exhaustion and get the kitchen under control for Remote Friday. Yippee!

Ooh, just heard thunder and it’s overcast outside–that should help me stay awake all day, right? But I am going to enjoy the rain as long as I can, since next week the Saharan dust will be here drying everything out. And it’s pouring out there now–I’m going to actually have to take an umbrella with me to the car. YIKES–and trying to keep my feet dry will be a challenge.

My mind is still not capable of producing fiction when it’s tired, alas; I tried to work on the prologue for the new Scotty book (and am finding my cards for the tarot reading each chapter serves as) but it was painful and didn’t get anywhere. Oddly enough, my mind can focus on writing non-fiction (hence the flurry of newsletters over the holiday weekend) and reading it, too. I hope to finish Laura Lippman’s new book this weekend as well as Moonraker, which also means writing about them for the newsletter as well. I also have some other things I need to get done this weekend. I have some errands to run tomorrow after work (including, sigh, more bloodwork) and preparing a pitch for Chlorine. Wish me luck!

I also met with my case manager/nurse from the drug company that produces the medication I’ll be dealing with for the rest of my life. I am actually really impressed by this service (I also have one for the infusion center, one from the specialist, and one from the hospital, which is a lot to keep track of; I’m also going to have to take some time to figure this all out and know what’s going on and where I am going), but it’s also making me realize just how serious this condition actually is, which is kind of scary in some ways, but…what can you do? Buckle down, accept it, and go forward. I am getting stronger every day; I can climb the steps without stopping or needing to balance with the railing, which is a good thing. The grocery store is no longer exhausting, simply tiring, which I can also live with happily, and while my skin is still ashy, the moisturizing does help but I am still, I guess, a little on the dehydrated side.

And on that note, I am off to the spice mines and to make a to-do list for the weekend. Have a lovely Thursday, and I’ll be back on the morrow.

Jedi Master Gregalicious

I Did Something Bad

Wednesday! Short weeks really do seem to zoom past, don’t they? Yesterday was actually a good day. I felt rested and not tired–but by the time I got home from running my errands I had to rest a bit before doing the chores, which I did do: unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, and folding a load of clothes. Now the week is half-over, and I am staying on top of the daily chores so this weekend I can do some more deep clean, organizing, reading, resting, and writing. I also spent some time reading both Moonraker and Murder Takes a Vacation (which I am loving, but I knew I would because I loved the character, Mrs. Blossom, since Laura Lippman introduced her in one of her Tess books).

And it’s always a pleasure to read good writing, you know?

In other exciting news, the weight loss has stopped. I weighed 177 at the doctor’s office last week; yesterday I weighed 192. It was also a good day; I , I was walking better, and I even walked across the street at lunchtime to CVS to get ice cream and a candy bar (still have some weight to gain back, after all!) and didn’t get worn out. I was tired by the end of the work day and while running my errands, but that’s fine. I stayed at the office all day and didn’t leave early, so that should have been expected. I finally got my new debit card, the purple LSU eye of the tiger card, and it’s gorgeous. I’ve also been kind of overeating lately but am hungry all the time and craving things. This weekend I am going to try one of those delivery apps to get lunch; I need to pop that cherry.

I also picked up my copy of Summer House by Yigit Karaahmet, translated by Nicholas Glastonbury; which came highly recommended by Kristopher Zgorski’s BOLOBooks blog, which always has great tips for books to read. I also swung by the library to pick up Sisterhood of the Lost Cause: Confederate Widows in the New South racism, which I am reading as research for my lengthy entry on the Lost Cause mythology, and an even deeper dive into the history of racism in this country and how it was allowed to perpetuate after the Civil War–which was a huge fucking mistake. It’s also going to be helpful as I continue to unpack my own grooming into prejudice and bigotry as I try to be a better person than what I was raised to be.

I am feeling so much better these days, and people are noticing that I look better, too. I look healthier and not as gaunt and skeletal (that fifteen pounds came in handy, clearly), which is also incredibly nice. I’m still not there and I know it’s going to take a hot minute, and I have to be patient, but I’ve also tentatively scheduled a trip to Alabama to meet Dad for their anniversary in late June. That will be the real test, won’t it? I’ve gotten behind on my audiobooks in the car listening, too, so that trip will probably help get me going on that as well. If someone would have told me twenty years ago that I’d love audiobooks, I would have laughed in their face. I’ve never liked being read to, but somehow audiobooks are different.

As far as the Patti LuPone discourse on-line is concerned, all I have to say is she needs to play Helen Lawson in a remake of Valley of the Dolls and leave it at that.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely midweek Wednesday, and I’ll be back later.

Bold Strokes retreat, Bombay Beach, album cover photo

So It Goes…

Tuesday and back to the daily grind of up early and back to the office. It’s a short work week, after all, and the weekend will be here before I know it, right? I feel good and rested and centered, which was what I really needed from this long weekend, and that’s a good thing. We’re also supposed to have stormy weather all week, which is kind of fun; I’ve been wanting some rain and thunderstorms, so I can curl up under a blanket and read. I managed to get the kitchen cleaned and organized, and made some progress on the living room, which I’ll gladly take. There’s some laundry to finish and dishes to do and put away that I left for today (I was really sleepy last night and went to bed early), but that’s okay. I have to run some quick errands after work–mail, library, and of course I have to stop at the grocery store because the primary reason I made groceries yesterday? Was the one thing I forgot to get. Typical Gregalicious. I forgot my list, of course.

And moisturizing has been amazing. I’m no longer ashy, and I love how my skin feels. I may never stop! I am also getting stronger, slowly but surely, every day, which is also kind of nice, you know? The stairs are still a challenge, but getting to be less of one every time I go upstairs.

This weekend also gave me the time to think and reflect about my life.

I’ve been really lucky in my life, you know?

As I wrote my remembrances of my friends Felice and Victoria this weekend, I couldn’t help but marvel at the fact that I knew, and was close to, two of the most important queer voices of the last fifty years, and that I was able to learn from them. I know so many amazingly talented people, and can call some of them friends–the kind of life I dreamed of having all those years ago when I was miserable closeted teen in that hellhole known as small town Kansas–that I wish sometimes I could go back and tell that sad unhappy child that his dreams would, indeed, someday all come true for him.

I finished reading Christa Faust’s fantastic The Get Off yesterday morning (you can read my thoughts on it here) and started reading Laura Lippman’s Murder Takes a Vacation–what a lucky reader am I, right? Yesterday was a pretty good day, overall. I rested, did some cleaning, and of course did a lot of reading (I also read some more into Moonraker), which was really nice. I also tried a quick and easy chicken and dumplings recipe I found on-line (knowing it wasn’t going to be as good as Mom’s, and I really need to find her recipe) for dinner. It turned out pretty good, actually, and as always, I followed the recipe the first time to see how it was, and am thinking already of ways to improve it and make it my own. There was no milk or flour in it, for example–the dumplings were quartered biscuits from a roll can–so that could also make a difference, but who knew boiled and simmered biscuits could be so damned tasty? I was also kind of pleased with myself for trying something new, too–it’s been a hot minute–and now that I seem to be settling into a new, post illness phase of my life, I want to do more of that.

I wrote three newsletters this weekend, didn’t I? One per day. I am actually finding that I enjoy writing the newsletters, because I can take my time and think about them, putting a little more thought and effort into them than I do the blog, which I just dash off every morning over my coffee.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Happy Tuesday!

El Castillo at Chichén Itzá. I visited here in 1993 and was blown away by the Mayan ruins.

End Game

Ah, Monday of Memorial Day and all is well in the Lost Apartment. I finished cleaning up the kitchen yesterday, which was amazing to walk down into this morning, and I swear I will never allow it to get that bad ever again–do it every weekend, Gregalicious, and it will get easier as it goes. I am trying to keep up with my chores throughout the week rather than pushing them to the weekend–always a recipe for disaster–and if I can keep up, life will be better and I can get other, deeper cleaning that needs to be done taken care of.

Yesterday I started getting creative again. I got up early, around six–don’t ask me why, it’s apparently a thing for me now, which is great since that’s when I have to get up for work–and had breakfast, wrote my blog and a newsletter about Victoria’s death (which reminded me I’d never eulogized Felice Picano, so I started working on that), and then read The Get Off for a while (it’s so excellent) and also more of Moonraker. I worked on the kitchen and get it taken care of–just some minor touches for my workspace tomorrow, and then I can slowly get the living room into order as well. I gathered everything I need to have handy when working on the Scotty book (the older volumes with post-its stuck throughout the pages, and yes, they are color-coded; the notebook with everything written thus far in its most recent draft; the cast list; and my thick folder of notes and research, most of which won’t be used); I should have done this months ago. I started writing the prologue, with a very short homage to Valley of the Dolls, and even started putting the tarot reading together. Not bad for a rest day where I also got the kitchen floors under control and barbecued, don’t you think? After dinner, we watched Fountain of Youth on Apple–John Krasinski and Natalie Portman and a treasure hunt, which was just a little too silly to be enjoyable–and the season finale of The Last of Us. This morning, I have to do the dishes and run the dishwasher, and then start picking up the living room while I swill coffee and listen to Taylor Swift while also taking reading breaks. I also started reading something new for non-fiction, Old Man River: The Mississippi River in North American History by Paul Schneider, which I am already loving. As you can see, my creative ADHD is exploding off the charts again so I am going to need to start writing more than just the blog and the newsletter soon, else I’ll explode.

I’m also up before seven today, with a good night’s sleep behind me and facing the last day of this holiday weekend. I do have to make a little groceries today; so I am going to try to do some things around here before I head over there. Dishes and the living room, mostly, as well as some self-care and reading. I feel pretty good this morning, only slightly physically weak, and I actually made it all the way upstairs last night without having to stop and rest on the way up. I’m eating more and more every day–and trust me, after worrying about gaining weight for 2/3rds of my life, it’s nice to eat whatever I want whenever I want without fear or self-loathing about it.

And it’s a short work week, which will be nice. I don’t think we’re booked heavily in the clinic this week, but I am pretty much caught up on everything at the office so the week should be a fairly simple and easy one to ease back into the regular routine. I’ve gotten up early every day of this holiday weekend, so getting up early to go to work isn’t going to be an issue tomorrow morning. Huzzah!

And I’m enjoying my morning coffee again. I don’t drink nearly as much as I used to before the illness, because I get shaky and jittery, but at least it is tasting good to me again. Normality seems to be slowly returning to one Gregalicious, but it is slowly happening, and I am very relieved on that score. I am also feeling ambitious again, which hasn’t happened in a long time, and I feel pretty good about that as well.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for the day. Those books aren’t going to read themselves, nor are those dishes going to wash themselves (self-cleaning dishes would be amazing), and Sparky is acting like he wants my desk chair or my lap or both, so I may as well repair to the easy chair. Have a lovely Memorial Day, and remember to toast those we lost in service to our country.

You know, the suckers and losers.

What can I say? I was hungry!

You Keep Me Hangin’ On

Work at home Friday, and I am exhausted. It was, over all, a pretty good week for me at the office, as I got a lot done and eased back into seeing patients. I have to get caught up on my homework today, so that should be a good thing as long as I can stay focused. I feel rested this morning, which is also enormously helpful; but we’ll see how long that lasts, shall we? Sparky let me sleep a bit more this morning, which was lovely of him, and now I have a few hours to do things around here before I start working this morning. I am not going to overdo it this weekend–trust me on that score, number one on the list for the weekend is relaxation and reading (and it’s a three day weekend at that!) and doing some chores to get the house back under control.

Last night we got caught up on both The Last of Us and Hacks (what a fucking episode! Jean Smart clinched this year’s Emmy, methinks, again), and now we’re going to be looking for something new for the weekend; I’ve heard good things about Overcompensating, so we’ll probably check that out–and Alafair Burke’s TV show, The Better Sister, will be debuting soon. I loved the book–seriously, if you aren’t reading Alafair you need to make better choices in your reading life–and the cast is fantastic. Huzzah!

Yesterday I got an ARC of Laura Lippman’s new novel Murder Takes a Vacation, which has moved up on the TBR list, and a copy of Frank Perez’s Rainbow Fleur de Lis: Essays on Queer New Orleans History. Frank is fantastic and knowledgeable; I also recommend his history of Southern Decadence. People think I know New Orleans? I don’t know shit compared to Frank! Frank is a repository of knowledge about queer New Orleans; in fact, I should consult with him about my 1994 New Orleans book. (adds to list)

I also cleaned the Keurig last night, and yes, my coffee is tasting much better this morning. Whew. I was worried I’d lost my taste for coffee during the illness, which was obviously not the case. Of course the Keurig needed cleaning–it needed cleaning when I got sick, and then it sat there unused for four weeks, and then I didn’t clean it before trying to use it again. Dumb dumb dumb, but I am glad I can enjoy my coffee in the mornings again. Huzzah! I may even try to get some writing done this weekend–at least work on a couple of essays and maybe finish that short story I started.

I’m feeling better, can you tell, Constant Reader? I feel like today just might be a good day, if not the best one I’ve had in a long time.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines to read for a bit before I start work. Have a lovely Friday, and I will check in with you again later.

British Olympic diving team, 2024 Paris

The Tracks of My Tears

Well, we made it to Thursday, didn’t we? Yesterday was a good day. I slept really well the night before, didn’t have to get up early (and Sparky let me sleep an extra hour; he’s started getting into bed and cuddling up to me every morning around four which is nice), and had a nice doctor visit. I lost more weight–honestly!–and am now under 180, which has been since at least the late nineties that I weighed so little. I did stop at Raising Cane’s to get lunch on my way into the office, and it was very good and very filling. It was a slow day at the office, too, so I was able to get a lot of my Admin work caught up as well. I didn’t feel exhausted, either, which was super nice…and of course I work from home tomorrow and Monday is a holiday, so huzzah! I do want to slowly and carefully work on the house some more over the weekend, and keep building up my own strength.

I really hate being feeble, but my body has been through a major trauma and I’m older, so I need to get over my impatience and take it easy–which is hard for me, because I always see it as being lazy (thanks Mom and Dad!) rather than being something necessary. Maybe if I can get on a roll with my reading and start doing some more writing.

I started writing my essay about Gone with the Wind and how it basically is the Bible of Lost Cause Mythology, which also reminded me of an earlier, equally foul (if not more so) book that was also made into a successful film: Thomas Dixon’s The Clansman, which was filmed as Birth of a Nation and preceded Gone with the Wind by a few decades, priming the pump, as it were. (I downloaded those books from Project Gutenberg, but can’t bring myself to read them.) I’ve really come to hate the Lost Cause myth over the years, but have to admit it’s not surprising that it was allowed to develop and become a horrible part of our history (and present) because stubborn Southerners refused to believe they were, or ever could have possibly been, wrong about anythin1g. (Yet they call themselves “the real Americans” now.)2

I slept well again last night, which is great; maybe uninterrupted sleep is going to be a thing for me again and praise Jesus and pass the ammunition, you know? Yesterday was actually a pretty good day, overall. I got a lot of work done at the office, always a plus to be ahead on my work, and we watched two more episodes of The Last of Us after I made dinner. I fell asleep in my chair instead of cleaning the kitchen the way I’d intended to, but I can do that when I get home tonight. Tomorrow is a work-at-home day for me, and of course that glorious three day weekend of rest, relaxation, and reading right behind it. Huzzah! I feel like I’m getting some of my strength back–a little, not a lot–and the process is going to be slow (I need to be more patient) and steady and hopefully by the end of the summer I’ll be back to some semblance of normality and weight.

And on that brief note, I will bring this to a close and head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thor’s Day, Constant Reader, and I will be back at some point soon.

  1. William Bradford Huie–a problematic journalist who committed some serious crimes by “protecting sources” in the Emmett Till case–wrote a book about the civil rights movement in north Alabama in the late 1960s called The Klansman, which showed three different perspectives–and the one from the bigoted police chief who does not believe he is a bigot is probably the best depiction of the Southern bigot mentality I’ve ever read; but the book is horrifically brutal and difficult to read. ↩︎
  2. There are some excellent novels that show the horrors of what the Jim Crow South was like: The Reformatory by Tananarive Due; Time’s Undoing by Cheryl Head, and anything by Wanda M. Morris–all writers you should be reading. And yes, they’re fiction, but so is the Lost Cause myth. ↩︎

The Tears of a Clown

Well, in excellent news, my insurance did approve my treatment plan, and it looks like it won’t cost me a penny–I finally met my deductible for this year, so everything should be free for the rest of the year, which is terrific. Yesterday wasn’t a good day–I was just as tired as I was on Sunday, didn’t sleep well, and so, well, yeah. Unpleasantness, and exhaustion. My mind was foggy all day (but I managed to get my work done efficiently and correctly), but I was able to function despite being so tired. I did manage to get the dishes done when I got home, and ran the dishwasher, too. It’s nice having a kitchen that is more clean and organized than not, though. I was very tired, as I mentioned, so I also read some of the Vicki Barr’s The Silver Ring Mystery–she always finds mystery on one of her flights, which is kind of fun–and then just kind of chilled for the rest of the evening (Paul was working on a grant) and relaxed.

Stop pushing yourself before you’re ready, Gregalicious.

While it is kind of silly, one of the nice things about being so sick for so long is that I am reminded how many friends I actually do have. So many emails and texts and DMs and calls from so many people really made me feel blessed and lucky–because I am blessed and lucky. Sure, it’s okay to feel down when you’re not well or things don’t go the way you want them to, but I shouldn’t wallow in it, and give into the despair that is all too often a part of my personality (the new medications have made the despair and depression pretty much a thing of the past anyway). Yesterday I received a text message from someone who is very dear to me, just to cheer me up in case I was down. I wasn’t down, just tired, but it did cheer me up and make me feel warm inside. It’s the little things sometimes, isn’t it?

I did manage to get some chores done despite my exhaustion before Paul and I settled in to watch season two of The Last of Us, which I’d forgotten about. We’d only seen the first episode and then I got sick, so I forgot all about it–and how good it actually is. We watched three episodes last night before I had to stop and get things ready for today–and huzzah, I did sleep pretty well last night so I feel rested and like I can get through my first day of seeing clients in over a month today.

We’ll see how that goes, won’t we?

And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines. Brief today, sorry; just not feeling a lot today but will be back tomorrow.

It’s the Same Old Song

Monday morning and back to the office with me today. Huzzah? Why not? Yesterday was a low energy day, alas. I didn’t sleep as well Saturday night as I did on Friday, and I think all the shopping and running around depleted all of my batteries and I needed to have a down day to recharge. I also think I overdid it. I don’t feel so great this morning, but it’s my Admin day so I think I can push through and make it. At least there’s a three-day weekend looming on the horizon; and yes, I am going to spend most of it resting, reading, and relaxing. I always get impatient with recovery and try to speed it up, which isn’t very smart. And I’ll have everything delivered; no grocery shopping for me for a while. I am also seeing my doctor Wednesday morning, so I can get some tips on eating and rest and so forth.

I spent most of yesterday in my easy chair, getting caught up on Hacks and The Studio (we also started MurderBot, which is interesting), and I don’t really remember much of last evening–an indication of how tired I was–and I didn’t sleep that great last night, either. Ah, well, these are the challenges that make life interesting.

I had a great ZOOM meeting with my editor yesterday–the book has now been pushed back and will be out in January, sorry, Scotty fans, just a little longer to wait–but I feel a lot more confident that once I am through with this recovery thing I’ll be able to whip it into something I can be proud of and Scotty fans can enjoy. I think my next read–as I try to get my brain unclouded and able to read again–will be a Vicki Barr Stewardess1 kids’ mystery that I’ve not read yet–The Silver Ring Mystery. At least I can use this foggy brain situation to my advantage and get those newsletters about kids’ mysteries done. I may even reread some old Gothics, too–my Kindle is filled with Phyllis A. Whitney and Mary Stewart classics–not to mention all kinds of other things I could reread. There’s also some great history books in there that I can dig into as well. I just never really think about reading on my iPad.

The house is also a mess; I was too tired to do the dishes last night after I made dinner and so left them, hoping I might get to them this morning. But alas and alack, I was much too tired to do so once I was up and so left them for tonight. It doesn’t take much to fill up both sinks, you know, which inevitably makes the kitchen look terrible. I also need to do the floors and the windows, get the filing done, and clean up my workspace. Slowly, slowly, slowly, of course, while taking breaks and resting so I do not wear myself out completely again. I have to swing Uptown to get the mail on the way home tonight–my box grater should be delivered today–and at some point, yes, I need to reorganize the pantry and the cabinets. I’m just going to make a to-do list without a date on it and see how that all goes.

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

  1. Don’t @ me, that is what the series is called. ↩︎